World of Politics with Harry McGee

1. Don’t always use the local elections as a guide.

Back in the day, Bertie Ahern led Fianna Fáil to three general election victories – yet the party’s performances in local elections was patchy to say the least.

Because local, and for that matter, European elections are horses of a different colour. They are second-tier elections and people vote in them for different reasons than they do in general elections.

The big example here in Ireland is the 2019 local elections when Sinn Féin tanked. So badly did it do that the party decided to pare down the number of candidates it ran in the general election to minimise losses. Then, against all expectations, the party won big in the general election. Problem was that it didn’t have enough candidates. If it had, it would have won the most seats with a good few to spare.

This time around the elections in June were all about Sinn Féin again. The party had a poor election, and immigration was a very big issue. Then just to show us that they can pull a rabbit out of a hat more than once, Sinn Fein did considerably better in the general election (but nowhere near as well as 2020). Immigration all but disappeared.

Local elections do track some trends though. Labour and the Social Democrats had good locals and carried that through to the generals. The Greens lost over half their seats and that was a portend of what would become a difficult general election.

The Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael performances were also roughly equivalent to what happens in the general election.

So some are on the button; some are well off. The problem is you never know which is which!

2. Celebrity candidates work for European and Presidential elections but not for general elections.

You could make a basketball team from the ‘celebrities’ who have been elected as MEPs in Ireland over the years – Dana Rosemary Scallon, Mairéad McGuinness, Maria Walsh, Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, former GAA President Seán Kelly. Not always of course; it didn’t work for well-known TV journalist Orla Guerin in Dublin over 20 years ago, or for ‘shock-jock’ Niall Boylan, also in Dublin, this summer.

It is not the same for general elections as Gráinne Seoige, Alison Comyn and Billy O’Shea found to their cost in late November. There’s a lot of toil and a lot of graft involved if you want to become a TD. That takes months and years. Both Seoige and Comyn arrived too late to make the kind of impact they could have.

3. Best line of the year.

Delivered by Barry Andrews, the Fianna Fáil MEP who was seeking reelection in Dublin. He was in the RTÉ TV debate for the Dublin constituency. When the outgoing Independent TD Clare Daly spoke, he responded with a killer line that criticised her perceived support for Russia and for other controversial regimes.

“You should think more about Crumlin and not the Kremlin.”

Pictured: One out, one in…Galway West election candidate Grainne Seoige with Cynthia Ní Mhurchú MEP at the Cáirde Fáil Dinner.