Sinn Féin has taken a hit on its exposed left flank

While both of last Friday’s byelections threw up shocks, the result in Dublin South West is arguably the more surprising and has given Sinn Féin reason to pause and reflect on how it manages what was previously believed to be an inexorable rise.

Dublin South West should have been the perfect constituency for the party. Last week's Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll put it in first place in Dublin, on 26 per cent, and at 39 per cent support among the poorest social categories.

While the reconfigured constituency for the next general election will bring in more middle-class areas such as Rathfarnham, the existing boundaries applied for this contest, with Tallaght and its environs the crux of Dublin South West.

It should have been fertile Sinn Féin territory, as it was in the local elections in May, which saw it emerge as the largest party on South Dublin County Council.

Because of that result, and initial byelection canvass reaction, the majority of predictions were that Sinn Féin’s Cathal King would take the Dáil seat vacated by Brian Hayes when he went to the European Parliament.

The weekend result showed King topping the poll with 7,288 votes, 30.3 per cent of first preferences. Eventual winner Paul Murphy, of the Anti Austerity Alliance, was second with 6,540 votes, or 27.2 per cent, and transfers saw him over the line on the eighth count.

It is probably the first election in recent years where Sinn Féin has had to deal with the fact that other credible contenders are capable of outflanking it on the left, in a manner as ruthless as it has targeted Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil.

Perhaps it probably never thought its positions on water charges would be challenged to such an extent as to see a Dáil seat it expected to win slip through its fingers.

Sinn Féin has said it is preparing itself for power, a point repeated yesterday by its sitting Dublin South West TD Sean Crowe. Crowe also told RTÉ's The Week in Politics that Murphy was irresponsible to tell people not to pay their water charges. "I genuinely do. I don't think that is the right message to give to people."

Nothing to fear

Even businessman Denis O’Brien has said he had nothing to fear from Sinn Féin. It would, he argued in a recent interview, move to the centre as it approached power.

The party’s uncertain position on water charges, exploited to great effect by Murphy, can be seen through that prism. Murphy said Sinn Féin would leave the charges untouched once around the Cabinet table; Sinn Féin, too late in the day as it transpired, committed itself to abolishing them.

Open on its left as it moves towards the centre, the party takes a double hit in elections like this because it is so transfer repellent that Fine Gael and Labour voters are prepared give their lower preferences to Murphy, a Socialist Party member running under the rebranded Anti Austerity Alliance banner.

Micheál Martin has even made soothing noises towards Labour in recent months, suggesting the two parties could form a government together. There is fat chance of that happening but Labour transfers could help a Fianna Fáiler in need come the general election. Sinn Féin gives no such quarter to anybody, and receives none in return.

That’s not to say the party will perform poorly in the general election. Undoubtedly, on last week’s opinion poll figures, its Dáil representation will increase from its current 14 but it now has food for thought. The Sinn Féin juggernaut narrative has taken a hit.

While it can be argued that Fianna Fáil has improved its support from the level of its 2011 pasting, it has not won in six byelections and has its own problems arising from defeat in Roscommon-South Leitrim where Ivan Connaughton lost out to Independent candidate Michael Fitzmaurice. They are hardly new ones, and the odds now are that it will still win more seats than Sinn Féin at the next election. It is stuck in a rut, and it is not enough to blame Martin. Nor is it fair to take the Mary Hanafin line that the front bench is an entirely useless shower unknown to the public.

Five members

The majority of normal members of society with much going on in their lives would struggle to name more than five members of the Cabinet, let alone the various Fianna Fáil spokespeople.

Radical or redundant, that Michael McDowell phrase so often bandied around Irish politics, cannot strictly apply to Fianna Fáil.

It cannot credibly be so radical as to call for the abolition of water charges and property tax, like Sinn Féin, since it came up with the policies while in government as a response to the crisis in the public finances. Similarly it cannot ape the Government too much.

Michael McGrath, Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman, last week characterised its alternative budget as an effort to sustain the recovery, sounding equal parts Enda Kenny, Joan Burton, Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin.

There can be such a thing as proactive opposition, setting the agenda with ideas and policies. It is not impossible.

Fianna Fáil needs an injection of passion to wake it from the stupor which has it muddling around in the polls. Big ideas which set the agenda but allow Fianna Fáil remain in the centre ground of politics could provide that jolt of energy.