Sinn Féin must outline what its version of a new Ireland would look like

2024 will be a bumper year for elections. More than 40 per cent of the world’s population will hold national elections across more than 40 countries. States including the US, India, the UK (probably), Pakistan, South Africa, Russia, Bangladesh, Algeria, Senegal, Rwanda and Iran will go to the polls. Taiwan will also hold elections. Mexico’s election in June will see two female candidates competing for president. In the European Union, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, will hold national elections. The European Parliament elections are also taking place. And then there’s Ireland, where a general election will happen in 2024 or early 2025. Whenever it is held, it will be the most dramatic election in many people’s lifetimes to date.

Sinn Féin holds around a third of voter support. The nitpicking over the party dropping or gaining the occasional point in polls and hypothesising about who may or may not accompany it into government misses the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that magic third. Sinn Féin is on course to win the most seats in the next general election.

Should that election take place this year, it will mark the 10th anniversary of a remarkable year for the party, something that tends to be overlooked. In 2014, it was the most popular political party in the republic, following the local elections of that year. Fine Gael was at 21 per cent, Fianna Fáil at 20 per cent, and Sinn Féin at 22 per cent. The combination of “other” – smaller political parties and independents – was at 23 per cent.

The reason I find this three-way split so compelling is that it returned in that famous 2020 general election exit poll that sent shockwaves through the Irish political system: 22, 22, 22. As the haze cleared, another three-way figure clarified the state of play; 24.5 per cent first-preference vote share for Sinn Féin, 22.2 per cent for Fianna Fáil, 20.9 per cent for Fine Gael. These days, Sinn Féin finds itself floating around the 32 per cent figure.

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We know Sinn Féin wants a united Ireland, but what will that new Ireland look like? What kind of country will we live in? What values will it have? What’s the big idea?

In 2020, 48 per cent of voters said the statement closest to their view was “best to have a change of government.” Thirty one per cent agreed that the “country needs a radical change in direction.” And so in 2020, 79 per cent of voters either wanted a radical change in direction or a change of government. This is why “change” as Sinn Féin’s mantra is so important. It’s popular.

But what flavour is that change? We know Sinn Féin wants a united Ireland, but what will that new Ireland look like? What kind of country will we live in? What values will it have?

Will Sinn Féin in 2024 still just be the “attack dog” of opposition, or will a vision of what it will look like in government be clearly articulated? The spats and point-scoring episodes are boring people. Voters don’t like politics being played, they want to see its (positive) impact on their lives.

An example of these pointless games was in the aftermath of the Dublin riots in November, when Mary Lou McDonald posted a photo on social media of a person drinking from a can on a doorstep near the school on Parnell Square where that awful attack occurred. This was ill-judged in many ways, not least because on this same square, Sinn Féin has had its head office for years. Was their leader not uniquely positioned to do something more seismic within that immediate community than merely tweet?

Sinn Féin has 36 TDs, but the broader public only really tends to hear from five; McDonald, Pearse Doherty, Eoin Ó Broin, David Cullinane and Louise O’Reilly. Would a majority of people on the average Irish street be able to pick Matt Carthy, Darren O’Rourke, Kathleen Funchion, Clare Kerrane, Imelda Munster or John Brady out of a line-up? I am not convinced.

Sinn Féin knows it has ended up filling a vacuum. The party’s popularity, therefore, is about people seeking an alternative of which Sinn Féin is the most visible representation. So, what voters need now is the big picture: values and detail, plans and policies. Ahead of a general election, voters want to know what change actually means.

Funnily enough, the one policy that most think isn’t to the forefront of the public’s mind could actually enable such radical change: a united Ireland

McDonald often speaks of ambition. I thought the line with most impact in her end-of-year interview with Pat Leahy was this: “Things take too long.” The lack of efficiency in getting big things done in Ireland is enraging. Fix that, win everything.

People want change because they know the big things are fundamentally broken, and that successive governments have adopted a “don’t ask me, I just work here” stance. What many people want is structural change so that systemic change can be enabled; a complete ideological change in housing policy, radical reform of local government, an overhaul of the Civil Service, a new health system, massive progress on transport infrastructure, a genuine public school system, huge investment in mental health and childcare.

Funnily enough, the one policy that most think isn’t to the forefront of the public’s mind could actually enable such radical change: a united Ireland. In a new country, big things can happen. But that will take time. Until then, Sinn Féin must outline what its version of a new Ireland – united or not – looks like.