A CHORUS OF ‘Come Out Ye Black and Tans’ was how veteran Sinn Féin politician Dessie Ellis and his supporters celebrated on 9 February 2020 after he topped the poll by a spectacular margin in Dublin North West.

Almost one in two voters in the suburban constituency had given Ellis their first preference vote.

Now though, nationally, Sinn Féin is polling several points behind where it stood in early 2020 (and several points behind Fine Gael and, though by a smaller margin, Fianna Fáil). Sinn Féin had a terrible local election, with just 12% of voters giving the party their number one.

Some voters who were among the 44% in Dublin North West to give Sinn Féin their first preference in 2020 told The Journal they won’t do so again on 29 November. 

However, there was a warm reception for Ellis’s running mate, Cathleen Carney Boud, on several doorsteps on Thursday evening, especially among voters for whom housing and homelessness are top concerns – and it was clear there are plenty of those.

Carney Boud and her team were quietly confident that the party is bouncing back from the disastrous locals – maybe not to 2020 levels of support, but certainly to a point where there is a lot for Sinn Féin to play for in the remaining two weeks of campaigning.

Housing and immigration

Spanning suburbs mostly built in the 1950s and 1960s, Dublin North West is a mix of working and middle-class communities across Finglas, Ballymun, Whitehall, Beaumont and Santry, as well as parts of Glasnevin.

The slate of candidates in the three-seater includes sitting TD Paul McAuliffe of Fianna Fáil and former TD Noel Rock, who hopes to break back in for Fine Gael as part of a ‘Harris hop’ in the capital. Rory Hearne of the Social Democrats will try to retain Róisín Shortall’s long held seat for his party as she retires.

Two sitting councillors, anti-immigration Independent Gavin Pepper and Conor Reddy of People Before Profit (the last candidate eliminated in 2020, when he benefited from Ellis’s surplus), are also running. On Newstalk this week, broadcaster and former TD Ivan Yates called it for Ellis, McAuliffe and Reddy.

All the candidates running here and across the country are in The Journal’s candidate database. 

Waiting lists for healthcare on the public system and the hoops people must jump through to obtain state assistance such as carers’ allowance were among the issues raised by voters when The Journal visited the constituency this week to take the temperature. 

Recent scandals surrounding Sinn Féin – such as former Belfast press officer Michael McMonagle being jailed for nine months for child sex offences, or former Senator Niall Ó Donnaghaile being revealed as having sent inappropriate texts to a teenager - have not cut through with voters.

Rather, bread and butter issues are to the fore as the election approaches.

Housing and homelessness were undoubtedly the issues raised most often by voters, young and old.

A much smaller proportion of voters expressed frustration at immigration, in particular of young men, into Ireland and into their area; some of these voters planned to vote for Sinn Féin and some didn’t.

For some, immigration and housing are linked as issues, with inward migration perceived as exacerbating the scarcity of homes. Some people expressed the view that not enough has been done to help homeless Irish people. 

Among those who voted Sinn Féin last time but are not planning to do so now, there was also a more generalised sense of disaffection and disillusion with the political establishment – and a perception that Sinn Féin is part of it.

“They’re all the same,” was a sentiment raised again and again.

This is a problem for Sinn Féin.

It was notable that Carney Boud’s key message on the doorsteps, repeated with great frequency, was: “We’re not in government.” 

Sometimes she said this unprompted, and sometimes she said it after listening to the issues people raised, such as inadequate support for people with additional needs and their carers.

One woman, who struggled to find a school place for her son, asked Carney Boud what Mary Lou was doing.

“She’s not in government,” Carney Boud said. “We haven’t been given a chance to put in our plan.”

But the woman felt that, “at the end of the day, you’re all the same”.

After a back and forth, with Carney Boud explaining that Sinn Féin TDs do not hold power, the woman conceded she might “give Dessie the number one – ah I’m only joking”.

Carney Boud received a couple of hard ‘no’s on the doorsteps, but these were outnumbered by those who were keeping their cards close to their chests, and by several firm promises of a first preference vote.

One woman broke down in tears as she told Carney Boud of spending almost 20 years on the housing list and struggling to get a permanent home for her children. 

An older voter proved a tougher customer, however, asking Carney Boud straight off the bat: “Where are you going to get this €39bn to build all these houses?” 

“The issue is not money, the issue is political will. There’s plenty of money in the country,” Carney Boud replied, adding that housing, once built, is a “once off measure” and Sinn Féin’s plans are “costed”.

“I’m just a bit sceptical about all of that, to be honest with you, because you’ve got to have the budget for the day-to-day running of the country as well,” the man responded.

Sinn Féin not being in government presents it with a twofold problem. While some voters perceive the party as being an ineffective section of the establishment, because it has many elected TDs, others, including this man, expressed nervousness about a Sinn Féin government given it has no experience of power this side of the border.

Election posters outside a derelict pub in Finglas village. The Journal The Journal

Talking to voters

When The Journal took to the streets in Dublin North West to speak to voters face to face, only a tiny minority indicated they don’t generally vote and don’t plan to this time. Most people were engaged and informed. 

At the Omni shopping centre in Santry, Tara Curtis, a young woman from Ballymun, said Sinn Féin’s proposal to cut USC on the first €45,000 of income would be important for working class people. She said she needs to do more research but is leaning towards voting for Sinn Féin.

A young couple, Jennifer McKeown and Martin Cassin, said they plan to vote for Sinn Féin, with housing the issue uppermost in their minds. They live in a HAP property and expect to remain there, though they both have good jobs, while covering creche fees as well is “a nightmare”.

“It’s time for a change,” Cassin said.

Housing is an issue that evokes anger and frustration among the older generation too.

In Finglas Village, Ellis’s constituency office is directly below a large former office block, Raven House, which is currently being redeveloped as 37 apartments.

Looking at the scaffolding from the nearby taxi rank, taxi driver Derek Russell predicted: “It’ll be owned by vulture funds and pension funds, so you can’t buy apartments, you have to rent.”

He said that while 20% of the scheme would probably be reserved for social housing, people would have to be already in receipt of housing assistance payment (HAP) to access it, and it was “just horrible” for young people to have to go through that. He added that it was much too difficult for young people to get a mortgage.

Russell voted for Sinn Féin last time but doesn’t plan to do so this time. He doesn’t think that Sinn Féin in government would be very different to the current administration.

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“When they get into government they’ll do the same as every other politician and say: ‘Oh we can’t do this, we can’t do that. What we said we would do, we can’t',” he said.

A few people indicated they will probably vote for Fianna Fáil; while some described themselves as lifelong supporters of the party, others were coming back after voting for Sinn Féin in 2020.

Threat from Independents

In the local elections, many people who wanted to turn away from the parties of government opted for Independents rather than Sinn Féin. As poor results rolled in from across the country on 9 June, party leader Mary Lou McDonald noted “frustration” and “anger” with government had translated into votes for Independents.

Talking to voters in Finglas village last week, it was clear that this remains a risk to the party’s support.

Denise Kearney, who voted Sinn Féin last time, said she won’t vote for them or indeed any of the larger parties this time, and instead plans to vote Independent. 

“I felt we needed change, and that’s what they [Sinn Féin] pushed – they pushed for change. Their ideologies lately, they seem to be cornered against the Irish people,” she said.

Pat Lynch voted for anti-immigration candidate Independent Gavin Pepper in the local elections and will vote for him again in the general election. Pepper was elected to Dublin City Council in the Ballymun-Finglas ward in June.

Lynch said he works long hours and has to pay his own medical bills, whereas people are “coming in off the boat and given medical cards – that’s why I’m going Independent”.

He said when Sinn Féin knocked on his door in recent days he “ran them”.

Carney Boud said both she and Ellis are not hearing as much about immigration from voters as they did in the local elections. 

“It’s calmed down. I think people are listening more and not jumping to conclusions with all the social media stuff that was rampant several months ago,” she said.

Disappointment in 2020 

Sinn Féin enjoyed an 11-point swing nationally in 2020 relative to the previous general election in 2016 – but even by this standard the party’s performance in Dublin North West was outstanding, with a 23.9 point surge.

This was the biggest swing to Sinn Féin nationally, but there was disappointment for the party here as elsewhere.

Dessie Ellis (fifth from left), Cathleen Carney Boud (green coat) and supporters celebrate his election in February 2020. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

Had the party given Ellis a running mate, he or she could have taken a second seat. Ellis’s first preferences alone represented almost 1.8 quotas.

There were three other Dublin constituencies with a swing of over 20 points to Sinn Féin, but the party only ran a second candidate and took a second seat in one of them, Dublin Mid-West.

In constituencies including Dublin South-West, Waterford and Mary Lou McDonald’s Dublin Central the party squandered huge first preference votes, and a shot at government, with its conservative strategy.

It will be hoping it can turn public anger and frustration at the housing crisis into enough votes this time to give it a another chance. 

Carney Boud acknowledged that the party has not been doing as well as it was in opinion polls, but said that even if Sinn Féin were being “cautious” in Dublin North West, “you would probably still run two here”.

“We’re quite positive with the feedback in the last week, so we’ll see how it goes,” she said. “A week is a long time in politics. You never know what comes around the corner.”