IT IS FINALLY Christmas week and after a mammoth year of elections and referendums, it is time for a wee break and some reflection on the year that was.
It was a hectic year in Irish politics, so roll it there Róisín and let’s have a look back at the highlights reel.
Here are the ten standout Irish political moments in 2024 as nominated by The Journal staff:
Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation as Taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael back in March is arguably one of the most consequential moments in Irish politics this year.
Tearing up toward the end of his speech, the Fine Gael leader said he made the decision for political and personal reasons.
“After seven years in office, I am no longer the best person for that job,” Varadkar said.
What came next was a short and snappy leadership discussion in Fine Gael.
Just four days after Varadkar made his announcement on the steps of Government Buildings, Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris was named his successor as leader of the party.
As Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza continues, the death toll as we near the end of 2024 has surpassed 45,000.
The decision by the Irish government in May to recognise the State of Palestine was a significant moment this year for both political and symbolic reasons.
Ireland announced it would officially recognised the State on 21 May 2024 alongside our European neighbours Spain and Norway, after months of delicate high-level negotiations.
“It’s a matter of giving hope as well for the Palestinians that the international community recognise this nation and recognise its right to self-determination and to have a right to have its own state,” Palestine’s ambassador to Ireland, Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme back in April.
In response to the decision, Israel recalled its ambassadors in both Ireland and Norway.
Seven months later, in early December, Israel made the decision to close its embassy in Ireland citing what it deemed as the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israel policy”.
Just days before, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin secured Cabinet approval for Ireland to intervene in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Criminal Court.
Ireland’s intervention will ask the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what is legally understood to be a genocide.
On 8 March, International Women’s Day 2024, Ireland’s electorate went to the polls to vote whether to change the Irish Constitution in what was referred to as the Family and Care Referendums.
It was seen as almost inevitable that the ‘women in the home’ clause in the Constitution would be removed and replaced at the first presented opportunity, but this and an amendment to change the definition of family were comprehensively rejected by the electorate.
The government chose its own softer wording rather than presenting the electorate with the amendments the Citizens’ Assembly had proposed.
The Family amendment was rejected by 67.7% of voters, while the Care amendment was rejected by 73.9%.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar conceded defeat, saying the Government clearly “got it wrong”.
The defeat was a significant embarrassment for the government and indeed all of the major parties in the Dáil who campaigned for a Yes-Yes.
June saw the local and European Parliament elections held in Ireland, with immigration a dominant issue in the polls.
Over 100 far-right candidates stood in this year’s local elections, almost three times more than stood in 2020.
FactCheck Editor Stephen McDermott wrote in June: “Although they occupied a similar space to other candidates who aired anti-immigrant views – particularly some rural independents – far-right candidates were distinguishable by their more extreme brand of politics.
“Rather than simply questioning Government policies on immigration, far-right figures use arguments that are unashamedly racist and littered with conspiratorial thinking and misinformation.”
Five far-right candidates were elected in June’s local election, marking a watershed moment for the movement in Ireland.
That said, the momentum did not carry through to November’s general election. Over 70 far-right candidates ran, but none were elected to Dáil Éireann.
There was a period in October of this year where it felt to political reporters that we were going to be writing about internal issues in Sinn Féin for the rest of our lives.
Other parties dubbed what happened to Mary Lou McDonald’s party in the weeks leading up to November’s election as an “implosion”.
The party had to deal with a clatter of crises in quick succession, with opposition parties more than happy to stick the boot in.
It began with questions over the party’s handling of a former party staffer who pleaded guilty to child sex offences.
Then it emerged that a party member resigned from the party after allegedly sending inappropriate messages to a teenager in an entirely separate development.
This Sinn Féin member was subsequently named as former Sinn Féin senator Niall Ó Donnghaile, who resigned from his position in December 2023 citing “health reasons”.
McDonald was forced to admit that she regretted how she handled the situation and issued an apology in the Dáil to the teenager at the centre of the matter.
Then came the resignation of two TDs, Kildare’s Patricia Ryan and Laois’s Brian Stanley.
Stanley’s resignation came after what he dubbed a “seriously flawed” internal investigation after a complaint was made against him in July, and a “counter allegation” was made during that process.
Despite all of these issues, the party was largely successful in not dragging them with them into the general election. Undoubtedly though, they did cast a shadow.
A key part of the rejection of the Family and Care Referendums was the failure of the State to listen to carers, and this was an issue that also came front and centre eight months later during November’s general election.
Taoiseach Simon Harris was forced to apologise after RTÉ captured on video an encounter he had with a disability sector worker named Charlotte Fallon in a supermarket in Kanturk, West Cork while he was out canvassing.
Fallon approached Harris and claimed that he had “done nothing” for the sector while in government.
The Taoiseach received huge criticism for walking away from the woman mid-conversation.
The encounter became one, if not the, stand out moment from the election campaign and formed part of a long list of misteps by Fine Gael (Don’t forget John McGahon and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary’s teacher comments) in what was a bruising campaign for the party.
2024 saw the Green Party go from 12 TDs and five years in Government to almost complete annihilation in the general election, with only party leader Roderic O’Gorman retaining his seat.
It was the year Eamon Ryan decided to pass the torch, stepping down as leader of the party in July.
Speaking during the count, O’Gorman said he has “no regrets” about going into a three-party government in 2020, but said the two main coalition partners did them “no favours”.
Whether the Green Party can build back up its support over the next five years remains to be seen, but seems likely. Although, it did take the Labour Party a while after 2016…
Speculation began to build ahead of the general election that Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch would be returning from Spain, where he had been arrested and charged for alleged organised crime activity, to contest a seat in the general election.
But no one really believed it until he lodged his papers in Dublin on 11 November before quickly taking off on his scooter.
During the campaign Hutch never really elaborated on what he was offering the people of Dublin Central other than to say he would be “the people’s choice” and deliver “change”.
Despite this, he very nearly won a seat in the four seat constituency, losing out to Labour’s Marie Sherlock in what was for a few hours a nail biter of a race.
Pandemonium broke out in the RDS when Hutch arrived at the count centre to concede defeat to Sherlock, with the gangland figure answering few questions from media before literally running from the property.
Watch this space though, asked if he would give a career in politics another go his response was: “I’d consider it.”
There she is in all her glory, the €335,000 Leinster House bike shed.
In September, one of the defining political stories of the year was written by journalist Ken Foxe, who learned via a freedom of information request that €335,000 was spent by the Office of Public Works on a bicycle shelter in Leinster House.
The OPW justified the cost by saying a high-quality structure was needed because of its sensitive location.
Speaking in the Dáil later that month, Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl said: “I know that I speak for everyone in this house when I say that it’s a profound embarrassment and the depth of public anger is entirely justified.”
The Social Democrats had an impressive general election, going from six seats to 11 in the Dáil.
But the celebrations were short-lived, when hours after the parliamentary party’s very first press conference in Leinster House, newly elected TD for Dublin Bay South Eoin Hayes was suspended from the party.
His suspension came after Hayes was forced to admit that he had not given accurate information to the media about when he sold shares he held in Palantir, a company that supplies AI technology to Israel that is used to help identify bombing targets in Gaza.
Hayes repeatedly refused to say when exactly he sold the shares or how much he sold them for.
He told reporters they were sold before he entered politics, but hours later a statement from him clarified that this was not true and they were sold for €199,000 a month after he became a councillor.
Deputy party leader Cian O’Callaghan said the following day: “Embarrassed would be an understatement. I’m very angry about the way this happened.”
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