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THE PERFORMANCE OF the Social Democrats in the general election was one of the major successes of the campaign, with the party jumping to six TDs.
Formed in 2015 with three TDs, the party fell short of expectations in the 2016 election and failed to get any additional candidates elected.
There was a further blow to the party in September 2016, when co-leader Stephen Donnelly announced that he would be leaving the party, reducing representation in the Dáil to only Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall.
Now, things seem to be changing.
In Donnelly’s own constituency of Wicklow, the Social Democrats candidate Jennifer Whitmore was elected above Donnelly (now with Fianna Fáil), winning more than 2,000 votes than her old party colleague.
For the first time, the party can reasonably argue it’s an all-Ireland political force, winning seats as far as Cork and posting solid results in constituencies such as Meath West.
Dermot Looney, the party’s Director of Elections, said that the fact it was a snap election did prove “difficult”.
“For some candidates and teams, that made things pretty hard,” he said.
Ahead of the election, the party certainly faced issues. There were no signs of an upcoming electoral breakthrough in the by-elections in November, while in Dublin Fingal and Dun Laoghaire, two well-known local candidates announced that they wouldn’t be contesting the election.
There were staffing issues too, with two vacancies – the head of policy and the head of communications – both left unfilled by the time Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced that an election would take place on 8 February.
With seven staff prepared to run a national campaign, the omens weren’t particularly good.
Facing up to a short campaign, the party had a relatively simple strategy.
“We were very aware of not running paper candidates. Everyone we ran was a legitimate person involved in their community,” Looney said.
Unlike the similarly sized Green Party, which runs candidates in every constituency regardless of the chances of winning, the Social Democrats landed on a more strategic approach.
“We would be right in targeting seats where we felt the party could grow,” Looney says, referencing the Green Party’s near wipeout in 2011 when it ran 43 candidates but only received 1.85% of the vote.
It’s a strategy that appears to have paid dividends. Jumping from two TDs to six, the party consciously ran candidates who already had a profile locally.
Some were well known. Apart from Whitmore in Wicklow, who topped the poll in Greystones in the May local elections, Dublin Central candidate and high-profile councillor Gary Gannon had been tipped to take a seat after narrowly losing out to Maureen O’Sullivan in 2016.
But there were new faces too in which the party had invested high hopes. Holly Cairns in Cork South-West, despite only being elected to the local council in May 2019, had been tipped as a possible contender to take a seat – and rewarded those expectations by becoming the only female TD in Cork.
Looney describes the candidates as “rooted” in their constituencies and credits the repeal campaign for offering some of the party’s new faces a way into politics.
“Almost all of our candidates were involved in the repeal campaign,” Looney said.
When it comes to candidates, “ideally the party would have run a few more,” he adds.
Still, it wasn’t all success. In Galway West, Niall Ó Tuathail – one of the party’s hopes – failed to win a seat.
Some suggested that Ó Tuathail’s failure was partly down to his decision not to contest the local council elections in May.
“We’re not disappointed at all with Galway West,” Looney said.
“At the end of the day, Niall didn’t want to run in the locals,” he adds. “His heart wasn’t in it.”
In that constituency, the party puts the blame on the Sinn Féin surge that attracted a younger cohort of voters who on another day might have voted Social Democrat.
Regardless of a few disappointments, the party is certainly pleased with last week’s result.
It’s now level on seats with its left-of-centre rival – and much more established party – Labour and has a higher proportion of female TDs than any other party.
Now, as the big parties struggle to form a government, the party wants to be ready for whatever the future brings.
Looney is clear: “We will need to prepare in the coming weeks for another election.”
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Absolutely delighted for the Soc Dems.
@Laura Grimes:
Delighted for them too – far more palatable party than any other on the left – principled and decent.
But their vote share actually fell by 0.1% in this election – to see this Seat increase as a consequence of anything other than SF transfers is simply wrong.
There is a place for them and I wish them well but patronizing articles like this help no one.
@Brinster:
Can see a few other commenters made the point before me – a second election with more SF candidates would decimate the rest of the left.
Another shower who would raise taxes. Their councillors on various councils voted to increase LPT last year. Luckily less than 50% of the electorate voted left.
@Keith ☘️: I actually think most of their policies were fairly balanced and well thought through. I couldn’t give them a vote when they support rent freezes though as I think that would be a disaster
@Keith ☘️: what we want is real leftist change, like SF, who would abolish the LPT… Our only wealth tax, which raises 500m a year for the exchequer… Yep, getting rid of that definitely isn’t populism personified by SF….
Honestly, the LPT is one tax I don’t mind paying and it can be deferred by those who haven’t the income to pay it. It’s a good tax imo.
@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: The LPT is the one tax I truly dislike paying! I don’t understand why people should be taxed to live in the house they bought. I’m also not sure how it’s truly a wealth tax. Outside of the cities house prices rise when local development happens – whether you liked the local development or not since there’s no real local democracy. So your little village where you bought your home gets “developed” in a manner you hate and you get taxed for it through rising house prices and property tax. I mean you don’t actually benefit from rising house prices unless you move! Am I missing something?
@Lorraine Mac Rory: the vast majority of the world pay LPT. And at much higher rates than we do. We pay far less tax than most of Europe and we want to pay even less. Madness. Taxes pay for services.
@Kieran: The ‘vast majority of the world’ do not pay property tax ‘at much higher rates than we do’. We do not pay ‘far less tax than most of Europe’. Your comment is complete hyperbole and exaggeration.
The cost of living here is the biggest burden, some of it to do with tax, but mainly prices in insurance, electricity, fuel, waste and banking. Cartels some would say. Countries with high tax rates get good services, such as free early child care. We can only aspire to that.
@Kieran: most countries with some kind of household tax get services for it – bins collected, street cleaning etc and a say in how the collected money is spent i.e. a new local library, local road improvements, a playground, a family street party etc. What services are we getting? and we get less than no say.. in fact local objections to planning are more often ignored.
@Lorraine Mac Rory: nobody likes paying tax, but we all agree services need to be paid for. So we have a few options:
* Income tax (tax on productivity)
* VAT and excise duty (tax on trade and exchange of goods)
* Employers’ PRSI (tax on employment)
* Asset tax (risks capital flight)
* LPT (easy to enforce and puts downward pressure on housing prices)
* Site value tax (as above. IMO a better alternative as it disincentives land hoarding)
* Inheritance tax (tax on being born to wealthy parents)
So which do you think is most fair?
@Keith ☘️: I will say to you Keith I was so close to voting for SF for the first time ever until I remembered Paul Quinns mother saying remember my son when you are putting your mark on ballot paper. Until they completely get rid of this TIOCFAIDH AR la mentality they won’t get a vote of me.
@Lorraine Mac Rory: The LPT rate and property value in which based hasn’t changed since it was introduced in 2013. So if you are going to make claims at least base them on actual facts.
80% of all LPT is retained by the Local Authority in which you live . 20% is put into a national bucket as is redistributed to counties with smaller populations ..not too what with All taxes raised by the state.
By international comparisons we pay some of lowest level Property Tax.
Property is the single largest form of accumulated wealth in the state. It also one that the really super wealthy cannot relocate abroad. So Dennis O’Brien who owns a €45M house in D4 has to pay.
That’s why SF policy to scrap it makes no sense .. They are the only Left Wing Party in EU advocating such a policy..
@XvSv: you’re missing my main “claim” which is our lack of say in how the money is spent. You also haven’t addressed my other points which is that the “wealth” in a person’s primary residence is useless to them until they sell it. The government could tax this wealth at this point (when its actually sold)….oh walt… they do that too..
To tax a person for living in their home is wrong wrong wrong. At least income tax taxes your means but LPT taxes you for not being homeless
Social Democrats are more level headed than sf. If they are in together they will bring a bit of reality to them. Very clever strategy. Running councillors with a bit of profile is a smart thing to do.
@Patrick Trench: I think that they should join in on a Sinn Fein led Government!
Actually their rise came from the perceived vote for change- people are fed up we want to b treated fairly in our own country – people saw a vote for change and it swept across the country in the form of Sinn Fein candidates- Mary Lou will tell u it’s because people believe in there ideologies that’s not the case for most, people want change more money in their pocket a fixing of the crisis this country – people saw a chance for change and a chance to stick it to FFG- so therefore the second third votes went to anyone but FFG – if they do form a Government Sinn Fein and others and it doesn’t work out which I believe their policies/manifesto won’t hold out – u will see the decimation of the Social democrats PBP as voters are fickle
@The Red Devil: yes you are spot on ,but I do think if FF and FG go back in to government together, a lot of people will not be happy.
Another election may see SF and the lefties do extreme damage to the other two big parties because they probably will run much more candidates.
@Ann Morris Doolan: Another election, if the same vote turns out, will see SF do extreme damage to the real lefties not to FF and FG. Soc Dem’s Sol/PBP and some independents in particular only got in because of SF surpluses.
Are you trying to say “that would be politicians thought about the process and put minds to work ” I feel faint at the thought of a political strategy
Let’s be honest, most of the SocDem gains came from a mismanaged Sinn Fein strategy of running too few candidates. They directly benefited from the transfer left campaign ran by SF.
All a Ireland? How many seats have they in the north?
@Paul Donnelly: All Ireland not all island…………
Transfers from SF…
have your say