The Irish do not share the same electoral anxiety that exists in other countries. When they go to bed this Friday, they will have at most the result of an exit poll that will have been made public at 10 at night (11:00 p.m. in Spanish mainland time) by public television RTÉ. Nothing else. The ballots will not begin to be counted until nine in the morning (10 in Spanish peninsular time) in the different counting centers where all the ballot boxes will have been previously concentrated.
“I hadn’t even thought about it, to be honest,” answers Patrick Doyle, who is leaving the St. Christopher Primary School polling station with his daughter hand in hand. “I don’t think there will be a significant change in a few days. I fear that the same people as always will continue in the Government. The system does not greatly favor those of us who think that another option is possible,” he says resignedly.
Judging by his words, Patrick has voted for one of the minority parties that are fighting to gain a foothold in these elections, such as the Social Democrats, the Greens or the so-called People Before Profit (People Ahead of Profits), which four years ago managed to gain a foothold on the Irish political scene.
But last-minute polls have drawn an immediate future that predicts few changes. The three main parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Féin, maintain a technical tie with around 20% support each.
The first two represent the political center of the country, in which Irish citizens have remained comfortable for decades. They made the unprecedented decision, in 2020, to govern in coalition, to avoid stopping the rise of their common enemy, Sinn Féin, the party that historically was the political arm of the IRA terrorist organization.
Four years ago it was the most voted in absolute numbers, although not in seats. Its leader, the Dublin lawyer Mary Lou Macdonald, managed to reconvert the image of the group, with a social, anti-system message and very focused on the great crisis that has been affecting the country since then: the shortage and high cost of housing.
“The time has come for the people to draw the new Government. We need a new Government, but the important thing is that each person’s vote counts the same,” said McDonald at one of the headquarters of the association to help deaf and dumb people. The Deaf Villagein the northern Dublin suburb of Cabra.
One of the episodes that marked a generally rather unremarkable campaign was an unpleasant verbal exchange between the Prime Minister, Simon Harris, of Fine Gael, and a representative of disabled people who reproached him for having done little for that group. Harris had to apologize for his words and attitude hours later.
A deceptive wealth
When it decided to bring forward the elections, a little over a month ago, the polls gave a clear advantage to Fine Gael, a socially progressive and economically liberal party. In the final stretch of the campaign, the polls even place it in third place, tenths behind Fianna Fail and Sinn Fén.
Harris had a comfortable budget surplus, with €37 billion raised from large technology companies, which years ago chose Ireland as their European headquarters thanks to a generous 12.5% corporate tax. To that figure we had to add the 14 billion more that Apple had to deliver to the Irish Government due to the imposition of European justice, which considered that the tax exemptions applied to the company were hidden state aid.
But just on the same election day the Government has agreed to publish the latest number of homeless people in Ireland: 14,966. Four years ago, when the coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail was formed, the number was 10,148. The number of homeless people has increased during this term by almost 50%, thus revealing the shortcomings of a country that is experiencing a certain mirage of wealth.
Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have been busy promising tax cuts and generous subsidies to citizens, as well as announcing big plans to finally solve the housing problem.
“I feel very hopeful for the future of this country,” Harris simply said at the polling station where he went to vote early in the day.
He knows that only his party and Fianna Fail will be able to add the 83 deputies necessary to forge a government majority. Even if Sinn Féin achieved the feat of being the most voted again – and that is a complicated condition – it would have almost impossible to forge its own coalition. The other two main parties have already conspired not to form an alliance with the heirs of the IRA, and the amalgamation of parties on the left represents a zero-sum game. The further they advance, the further Sinn Féin retreats.
McDonald’s formation also brings with it an internal crisis caused by a series of poorly resolved sexual scandals and by its ambiguity regarding the growing irregular immigration. His traditional electorate does not forgive him for his open and progressive discourse in the face of the increase in asylum seekers on the island.
In just two years, 120,000 Ukrainians and almost 30,000 asylum seekers have arrived, most of them from the Middle East, to a country of 5.2 million inhabitants that until recently was more accustomed to producing emigrants than receiving them.
In it Grand Dock In Dublin, the dock that brings together the large skyscrapers where large multinationals such as Google, Meta, or PWC live, there was little activity this Friday. Many employees are teleworking this day. The few that are seen on the street are either foreign residents or are unable to tell the correspondent if there are any polling stations in the area. Ireland’s main source of wealth seems to live in another world, unrelated to the election day that is taking place in the country.
