The local elections have been a “calamity” for Sinn Féin, which might only gain 20 seats by the time counts conclude.
That’s according to The Irish Independent’s Fionnán Sheahan who thinks the party expected their name would see candidates over the line, without putting in the necessary work.
As things stand, Sinn Féin has elected 94 councillors with an 11.82% share of first preference votes, well off Fianna Fáil's 223 seats and Fine Gael’s 230.
Some 884 seats have been filled out of the 949 up for grabs.
Photo shows: Sinn Fein party leader Mary Lou McDonald speaks to media in the RDS count centre Photograph: Sasko Lazarov / © RollingNews.ieOn The Hard Shoulder, Mr Sheahan said Irish politics is in a new place now.
“If you thought the political system was fragmented last Friday, you ain’t seen nothing yet – to borrow Simon Harris’ phrase,” he said.
“You have serious players on the pitch now in a variety of constituencies from Independent Ireland and Aontú and the Social Democrats have expanded their franchise as well.
“This all changes the dynamic in pretty much every constituency for the next general election and puts people in play who previously weren’t thought to be there.”
'You're going to get kicked'
He said Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have also “got their mojo back”.
“They were quite happily fighting for the top spot all day with Fine Gael winning by 0.1%, but Fianna Fail says they’re still going to take more seats than them,” he said.
“Regarding the Greens, it will send a message to other parties on the soft left that there is a price to be played for going into Government; you can happily sit on the opposition benches and complain away but once you go into Government - you’re going to get kicked.
“But you also want to be in there to implement your policies.”
Ballot boxes are collected at a counting centre. Alamy.comMr Sheahan said Sinn Féin’s campaign and election decisions left him wondering “what the hell” they were thinking.
“You can’t simply blame the voters here, you have to look at the party, bad candidate selection, bad vote management and bad campaigning,” he said.
“They had 300-odd candidates across the country.
“Unfortunately, they picked those candidates back when Sinn Féin was around 30% in opinion polls and you can see that shaped in the number of candidates they had running in particular areas.”
Sinn Féin in Europe
Mr Sheahan said the elections have been a “general calamity” for Sinn Féin.
“The worst might be yet to come for Sinn Féin if they don’t win a seat in Midlands North West," he said.
“The word coming back from tallies there is they will be very much struggling that the vote was poor and was split by two candidates, neither of whom caught on over the course of the campaign.
“They will argue that their vote increased on the local elections from five years ago, fine, it went up about two points and they’ll come back with about 20 more seats than they had previously.”
Sinn Fein party leader Mary Lou McDonald speaks to media in the count centre Photograph: Sasko Lazarov / © RollingNews.ie
