DEMAND FOR CHANGE SET TO GROW
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Just over a year after the 2020 Leinster House election, SEÁN MacBRÁDAIGH catalogues the key events, highlighting the implications of Sinn Féin’s ground-breaking vote and growing support.
ver a year since the most historic Irish general election in a generation, its reverberations are still being felt. Every election since the foundation of the Irish state has resulted in governments led by Fianna Fail or Fine Gael. For almost 100 years, since the Partition of Ireland, nothing like the 2020 election has ever happened. With Sinn Féin winning a plurality of votes, the election finally marked the end of the old, two-party system in the 26 Counties. Not only that, but Sinn Féin topped the poll in constituency after constituency across the state. While overall support for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil has been on a downward trajectory over several general elections, their combined vote share of 43% in 2020 was the lowest ever. The scale of the change that had occurred was evident when Mary Lou McDonald became the first person not from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, and the first woman, to get
anphoblacht UIMHIR EISIÚNA 1 - 2021 - ISSUE NUMBER 1
the biggest support in a Dáil vote for Taoiseach on 20th February. Dáil seat allocations put Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, and Fianna Fáil on 37, 35, and 38 seats respectively. Sinn Féin won the same number of seats as Fianna Fáil, but the latter were awarded the extra seat due to the automatic re-election of the outgoing Fianna Fáil Ceann Comhairle. It’s worth recalling that the election was preceded by an increasingly dire performance by a Fine Gael Government supported by Fianna Fáil. The election itself was precipitated when Health Minister Simon Harris faced a Dáil motion of no-confidence as the health system verged on collapse with health workers forced to abandon intolerable working conditions and elderly patients left to suffer for days on hospital trolleys. An arrogant administration was seen increasingly to be in hoc to property developers and vulture funds, as hard working families faced unaffordable housing, spiralling rents, and an attack on pension rights.
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