Sinn Féin buoyed up by deeper pool of political talent

Many younger voters — and many older — would eat their voting cards rather than support FF and FG. Those are the parties that so casually destroyed the housing market, neglected the public health service and promoted inequality as an economic dynamic.

The rise of Sinn Féin is understandable; the continuation of that rise is far from inevitable.

The latest poll, in the Irish Times, has Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael neck and neck at 20pc each. And Sinn Féin outstripping each of them at 35pc.

Sheer survival forces FF and FG ever closer into each other’s arms. And that continues to expose the falsehood of the supposed differences between them — which has allowed the parties to dominate politics since the birth of the State.

Of course, it’s all John Hume’s fault.

Through the 1990s, when Sinn Féin got a pitiful vote in the South, Hume argued they would never gain political legitimacy as long as the IRA was killing people.

Perhaps Hume knew Sinn Féin’s political ascent would mean the collapse of his own party, the SDLP — but his primary political aim was an end to the killing. For that, he became a hate figure to those republicans for whom the armed struggle was everything.

More extraordinarily, Hume became a hate figure to those in the republic whose greatest dread was the political rise of Sinn Féin.

Hume won the argument. The Belfast Agreement followed. It was a hugely flawed settlement but it was attractive to most in the north. Perhaps on the simple basis that with a settlement of some kind you were less likely to stumble across a body at the end of the lane behind your house.

Hume meant what he said. Sinn Féin without an armed wing was entitled to political legitimacy. To many in the south, that was heresy.

Even after the Belfast Agreement, many in politics and in the media continued to actively oppose the notion of Sinn Féin’s political legitimacy.

For FG, FF and Labour, it was cynical politics. Their answer to every political point Sinn Féin raised was to metaphorically flourish the corpse of a prominent IRA victim. Rather than take on Sinn Féin in political terms, they sought to squeeze an ounce of political superiority from the memory of the dead.

There were others whose opposition to Sinn Féin remains moral — the party’s historical association with the IRA meant it could never be legitimate.

It didn’t matter Sinn Fein was following a historical path long ago taken by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael — away from the politics of the gun.

As Sinn Féin continued to gain support, however, the issue became no longer simply a matter of denying the party political legitimacy. It meant denying the political legitimacy of the choices huge numbers of voters were making.

To understand the rise of Sinn Féin, look at Fianna Fáil and look at Fine Gael. Many of their supporters are genuinely upset by the housing crisis: huge numbers are driven to homelessness; young people have to live with their parents long past the time when they find that viable; increasing numbers who want to buy homes face impossible mortgages. Those who can’t afford to buy face extortionate rents.

All the while, people who are already well off are raking in the profits.

But finding this upsetting doesn’t amount to much. And those who hold sway within the party will most likely not be tenants, they will be landlords. They will most likely not be homebuyers, they will be developers and vultures.

Committed members of Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael may be unhappy with what their parties have made of this society, but they won’t do anything that’s against the interests of the One True Party.

However, few voters feel that loyalty. Most want better government.

For decades, FF/FG had a killer ace: their experience, pragmatism, ability to Get Things Done.

Yes, it was suggested, both parties have a history of bribery and corruption and perhaps they have been a little too careless about some matters. And, yes, the cost of that children’s hospital is rather more than we hoped. And, well . . .

But, they insist, the country can’t afford the romanticism of idealistic young people. At least FF/FG can count, which is more than you can say for those bloody Sinn Féiners.

That argument had some validity up to a point — after all, FF and FG had decades of experience in government. But that point came in February 2016.

Up to then, you might be dismayed by the mess the two big parties repeatedly made of the things that mattered — health, education, housing — but they always had a technical excuse: the price of oil, the limitations of EU regulations, the effects of international bumps, slumps and crashes.

In 2016, the buzzwords were “fiscal space”. That was simply the room a finance minister had to manoeuvre after income and expenditure were calculated.

The figure being thrown around was €8.9bn, and maybe €12.9bn if you were wearing your other pair of glasses.

All very technical, nothing the average punter could understand, much less those Sinn Féin louts who couldn’t find their way around a calculator.

Bottom line: Fine Gael mislaid €2bn in their calculations. They showed their figures to the financial experts in Fianna Fáil and Labour, who nodded wisely and didn’t notice that €2bn had been counted twice.

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty spotted the mistake and brought it to the attention of the Department of Finance, which confirmed he was right.

This did not just mean SF had some bright people. It meant Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour and their ultra-bright and extremely well paid “advisers” were making it up as they went along.

There were two billion reasons to dismiss the long-running claim: “At least you can trust us to get the figures right.”

Fine Gael’s “responsible” reputation went down the toilet. Fianna Fáil and Labour, clinging to their fiscal coattails, went down along with them.

Ah, yes, they say, but at least we have enough experienced TDs to fill a cabinet.

Recently, in a routine Prime Time piece on the fight against Covid, Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers represented the party. Jack is Chief Whip and Minister for Looking Very Serious When the Camera is On Him.

Looking at his notes, he fumbled through meaningless figures. Asked how come healthcare workers, eligible for the vaccine booster from mid-October, won’t all get it until the end of December, Chambers had no answer. Instead, he insisted on saying something irrelevant about how efficient the original vaccination distribution was.

Asked to comment, Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane demanded a return to “first principles: test, trace, isolate”. He wasn’t saying anything radical, but it was lucid and confident, an adult joining the conversation.

That happens repeatedly. Sinn Féin has a deeper pool of potential talent. By comparison, the FF/FG crowd are inept.

In 2007, the Greens partnered Fianna Fáil, just in time for the crash and the austerity that followed.

In 2011, Labour made the same mistake. They joined Fine Gael in dishing out foolish, damaging austerity, to pay off the debts the greedy classes had run up. And to do so at the expense of the productive classes. A handful of elderly Labour TDs got to play minister for a while but it destroyed the party as an alternative.

Sinn Féin — a nationalist, relatively conservative party with some radical members — was left a clear field to show its potential.

They may soon be in the terrible position of having to live up to the expectations of the voters.