It might well be the case that the end of 2024 also marks the end of a political era in Ireland – namely, that associated with the 2020-2024 coalition government.
It was the era of the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green coalition, a coalition that no one actually voted for implementing a Programme for Government that, in the same spirit, no one voted for either.
All politics ultimately plays out on the street and the state of that same Irish street at the end of 2024 says much about the political era in question. In a word, it’s been a case of death by a thousand cuts for many businesses and enterprises on that same street.
A feature of social media over the last six months has been the ubiquitous announcement on Facebook by the local coffee shop of its impending closure. In thanking its customers, it also invariably cited rising costs as the reason for closing.
We’re all aware of the 9% vat rate and its importance for the survival of the hospitality industry but let’s not forget the other costs such as increasing the minimum wage and pension auto-enrolment. These were all good news stories for the political players who announced them but ultimately, it’s the struggling local coffee shop and newsagent on that same street which end up paying for those promises.
What is not often mentioned in relation to these closures is that, faced with the prospect of repaying Covid supports, many small businesses simply opted to close. It might well be a case of the doctor – in this case the State - ultimately killing the same patient it was supposed to be saving from the financial fallout of a pandemic.
But that is by no means the extent of State involvement on the ubiquitous street over the last four years. One of the newer items of Irish street furniture these days is the Deposit Return machine which, in this case, is likely to be located to the front of the local Centra supermarket on that same street.
The main achievement of these machines, apparently, is that they have got the majority of people recycling PETs and cans. What no one mentions is that the majority of people were already doing that using their own domestic refuse bins. However, it appears that the cost and sheer inconvenience of these machines are deemed to be worthwhile by those who fly half ways round the world to boast about them.
That’s the same meddling and interfering, do-gooder political philosophy that has also succeeded in closing the local hotel which, invariably, subsequently re-opened as an accommodation centre for asylum seekers. Needless to say, for many small towns the local hotel was also often the only hotel.
In the recent election, the Green Party liked to boast about its achievement in providing new bus routes to small towns and villages. However, it usually shied away from talking about the economic destruction people like Minister Roderic O Gorman brought to such places by frequently closing the only hotel in town. Regardless of how it is presented, a bus route will never be a substitute for the economic activity generated by a local tourism industry especially in the peripheral areas usually targeted by O Gorman for his asylum centres.
That same general election certainly brought its share of change although it might not have seemed so on that same street. That Fianna Fáil had a good election says more about its leader’s carefully crafted political skill of not dropping the ball than it does about any particular political vision he may hold.
For Fine Gael, it was more a case of the New Energy flop as the carefully curated PR image of Simon Harris as the New Energy crashed in fairly spectacular fashion. In the recent general election, Fine Gael received 20.8% of the vote giving it its third worst electoral performance ever meaning that the party now has no TDs in 10 Dáil constituencies.
It was interesting to note how that same ubiquitous street again intruded on the recent general election campaign. Notably, this took the form of a chance encounter between Simon Harris and a care worker in a supermarket in Kanturk. For many, this provided the TikTok moment that sealed the fate of Harris’ slick but ultimately doomed election campaign.
That Harris TikTok moment was less about any deficiencies in specific care policies and more about the laying bare of a campaign built around Simon Harris. It was a shallow, superficial effort at politics and it was designed to be so. How fitting then that it collapsed like a house of cards in a supermarket, of all places, on a street in a provincial town in north County Cork.
Failed is also the only word that can be applied to Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Féin campaign in that same general election. Going from 32% in the polls in 2023 to just 19% in the 2024 general election is the political equivalent of being 3-0 up with 30 minutes to go and losing 4-3. McDonald and her followers will have plenty of time to chew over that on the opposition benches for the next five years.
The core reason for Sinn Féin’s disastrous result might well be traced back once again to that ubiquitous street and the closure of the local hotel. Undeniably, immigration was a factor in the recent election and the fact that Sinn Féin sided with the government on what was a de facto open borders immigration policy is one of the main reasons why they are now set to resume their places on the opposition benches.
The thing about the street is that at dusk it has a surreal and, at times, lilliputian feel to it especially when viewed through a rear-view mirror. As with all optics, it sometimes seems that nothing has changed when in fact much has changed.
Either way, we are facing into a new year where the Greens have been removed from power. The most spectacular political flop of the year was not so much Simon Harris’ Fine Gael as it was the type of politics associated with that brand of Fine Gael. 2024 was also the year which saw off a Hate Speech bill and witnessed the emphatic defeat of Roderic O Gorman’s Family and Care referendums.
These may well have been more setbacks than outright defeats for the powerful political class promoting them but, nevertheless, they were significant in their own right. As 2025 beckons, at least let’s be grateful for small mercies.
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