Far be it from me to dispute the Sunday Business Post’s framing of its own opinion poll, but “Fine Gael surges” might seem to some people as something over an over-statement when used to describe a poll in which the main party of Government managed to achieve the support of barely a fifth of the electorate, at just 23%. That is a number which, if achieved in a General Election, would represent the halfway point between Fine Gael’s 2016 performance (25%) and its 2020 performance (20%), and would probably bring it back with fewer than 40 seats. Such a result, were it repeated on election day, would hardly constitute a thumping mandate.
Indeed, the absence of a mandate for anyone would likely be the only reasonable interpretation of this poll, were it to be repeated on election day:
POLL: Business Post/Red C
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) September 14, 2024
(Sept 5-10, MoE 3%)
Fine Gael 23 (+2 since end June)
Sinn Féin 18 (-2)
Fianna Fáil 18 (-1)
Social Democrats 6 (+1)
Ind Ireland 4 (-1)
Greens 4 (-1)
Labour 4 (+1)
Aontú 4 (+1)
PBP-Solidarity 3
Independents/others 15https://t.co/bKMh2YJRjQ
What the poll does show is that the general structure of the Irish electorate remains pretty stable: There is 14% for the trio of soft-left parties divided between the Greens, Labour, and the Social Democrats. There is roughly 40% of the vote lined up behind Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The anti-establishment vote including Independents, Independent Ireland, and Aontú is around 24%. That leaves you with the remaining 22% divided between Sinn Fein and People before Profit on what might be called the harder left.
If you look at the electorate in terms of those four blocs of voters, then you can see why the election is likely to return some version of the current Government: The anti-establishment vote is too fractured to provide the FF/FG bloc with consistent support over a five-year term of office, while the smaller soft-left bloc has three distinct parties to choose from, one of which traditionally does better than the other two at any given election. It is therefore likely that the next Government will be FF/FG+1, with the +1 coming from one of Labour, the Social Democrats, or the Greens. That is the most obvious path to 50%+1.
The stunning thing here, really, is that the polling consistently now has Sinn Fein on course to lose seats, rather than gain them, at the next election. In 2020, the party secured 37 seats on 24.5% of the vote. On these figures, it would be losing about a quarter of its vote, and therefore should expect to lose something like a quarter of its seats. That would be approximately 9 Sinn Fein TDs who could expect to lose their jobs at the hands of the voters.
Relative to the last election, the biggest single gainers here are independents, up about 4%, not including Independent Ireland and Aontú. Add Independent Ireland into the “Independent” column, and the gain becomes more like 8%, which would suggest upwards of 10 new Independent TDs being elected (though vote share is harder to translate into seats for Independents).
When you step back and look at this, the story it tells about confidence in Irish politicians is not pretty: Hardly any party which contested the 2020 election has advanced in this poll series relative to that election, while the main opposition party (which should traditionally benefit from Government unpopularity) is on course to lose in a big way. To the extent that shifts in the electorate can be divined, the shift is away from parties and towards plague-on-all-your-houses independents.
It is very hard to see this shift as a reaction to anything other than immigration: Immigration, after all, is the one issue where the Independents tend to have a distinctive message relative to the political establishment. Sinn Fein’s sudden decline since the end of last year has correlated perfectly with immigration becoming a major political issue. The rise of Independent Ireland – even despite a row with their base over Ciarán Mullooly – is also clearly aligned with the increase in salience of immigration. Aontú, also, have made their gains in tune with immigration becoming a bigger issue.
Voters who want action on that issue, however, will have to recognise the way that our political system works: Electing a bunch of disparate independents to represent them may well be an effective protest vote, but it is – as the figures above indicate – entirely unlikely to result in any significant change in governance. In fact, the soft-left in the triple personas of the Greens, Soc Dems, and Labour, have a significant leg up on entering Government by virtue of the fact that their support has fewer places to go, and is more coherently expressed in the polls.
It will be up to Independent Ireland and Aontú in particular to make that very case to voters ahead of the next election – that backing them is the only way to secure political change by making them the only viable coalition option to make up the numbers. If they cannot do so, then it is very likely that the next five years will look much like the five we have just had.
Because as things stand, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are going to win the election by default.