LEO Varadkar has accused Sinn Féin of acting like they have already won the next election in the Republic.
The Tánaiste made his comments on the same day the party topped the polls in the North, putting Michelle O’Neill on course to become the first nationalist first minister.
On a momentous weekend for Irish politics Sinn Féin secured 27 seats, ahead of the DUP’s 25.
Sinn Féin’s popularity has continued to grow on this side of the border too with latest opinion polls showing them with a 33 per-cent popularity rating, ten per-cent ahead of Fianna Fáil and 11 per-cent in front of Fine Gael.
But asked during a visit to Letterkenny on Friday whether it was a foregone conclusion that Mary Lou McDonald’s party would now be the biggest party in the State after the next general election, Mr Varadkar said not necessarily.
“Obviously we will have an election here in a few years and the people will decide,” the Fine Gael leader told the Donegal News.
“Opinion polls don’t predict the outcome. Sinn Féin had a really good election last time but the polls only started to show that when we were well into the campaign. Certainly in 2016 the polls didn’t show that Fianna Fáil would do so well and come within one per-cent of beating Fine Gael.
“So definitely the last two elections didn’t predict the outcome here in Ireland, certainly not two months out, never mind two years out.”
Mr Varadkar pointed out that the combined support of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens was well ahead of that of Sinn Féin. Asked if he was considering a future coalition government, the Tánaiste said coalitions had been a feature of Irish politics for over 40 years and that he didn’t think that was going to change.
Criticising those within Sinn Féin he said were behaving like they already had the next election won, he added, “I know there are some Sinn Féin people strutting around Dublin meeting ambassadors and reassuring businessmen that nothing will change in terms of economic policies if they get in. They are behaving like they’ve already won, but it is the Irish people who will decide not them or the opinion polls.”
A feature of the Northern Ireland elections was how fractured unionism has become. Jim Allister’s TUV party polled well but ultimately clinched only a single seat. The predicted demise of the DUP did not come to pass while the UUP struggled badly. Apart from Sinn Féin the biggest success story to emerge was Naomi Long’s Alliance Party. They took 17 seats, up from the eight it won in 2017.
Mr Varadkar used his visit to Donegal to speak to some of the mica families. Here Peter Patton explains how metal supports are helping keep his living room ceiling from falling in.
Leo Varadkar said the fact that unionist parties were so split did not bode well for future political stability north of the border.
Recalling a quote from the journalist Lyra McKee, murdered in a gun attack in Derry in 2019, he said, “When unionism is divided it makes it harder for them to come to agreements and make comprises.
“And we’ve seen that before, almost any unionist leader who has taken a leap of faith and done the right thing, from O’Neill to Trimble, they have found their position undermined very quickly.
“I think unionism being divided is not a good thing, that is the reality of the situation. But I think one thing we are seeing with the very strong performance of the Alliance Party is more and more people in Northern Ireland not wanting to accept the definition of orange and green and being willing to vote for cross-community parties.
“That may be the real story of this election and a lot of us have been waiting for that to happen for a very long time.
“One thing that Lyra McKee said, and I’ll never forget it, was ‘for me it’s not about a stronger union or a united Ireland, it’s about a better life’. And if people are starting to think and vote that way in larger numbers then maybe that will be the positive to come out of this election.”
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