Holly Cairns a breath of fresh air for Soc Dems, but leadership will be tested soon

There can be little doubt that Holly Cairns is a breath of fresh air both for the Social Democrats, and the wider political sphere generally.

As the youngest party leader in the Dáil, the Cork South West TD is in prime position to present herself as the voice of a lost generation, those who were locked out of the housing market and left to emigrate, permanently shunning traditional party politics.

In both her first Leaders’ Questions appearance and press conference afterwards, she presented herself as emblematic of a huge swathe of younger voters who feel left behind by the well-established parties. “I am a member of the first generation who will be worse off than our parents,” she told the Dáil.

Taking a swing at those who have questioned her bone fides for the role of party leader, Ms Cairns began the press conference at The Tara Building on Tara Street in Dublin by asking: “How on earth did I get here?”

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Cairns: 'I'm a member of the first ever generation who will be worse off than our parents'

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It was not, however, a statement of bashfulness or a betrayal of a lack of confidence.

[ Holly Cairns: Cork horticulturalist who quickly gained a national profile after election to the Dáil ]

“It might be on your minds too, in fact I know it is because I have scrolled through Twitter. And it is a fair question. How can someone who first joined a political party less than five years ago now stand before you as party leader? It is a fair question,” she told party members and media.

“Some will say I am too inexperienced for the job. To them I say, I have plenty of experience. I grew up on a small dairy farm in West Cork. I worked as a waitress through school and college and had to emigrate after the crash. I may not fit the stereotype of a politician, but that is not a bad thing. And let’s not forget that some of the most experienced politicians in the country bankrupted it less than a decade ago. And some of them, by the way, are still in power today.”

This drew raucous applause from the party faithful, and bore all the hallmarks of the acerbic wit of Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald. Her comments were almost reminiscent of McDonald when, fresh from being selected as Gerry Adams’s successor in 2018, she told press conference in Belfast: “The truth is, my friends, I won’t fill Gerry’s shoes. But the news is that I brought my own.”

Cairns told the room that after she was elected, “the commentators and the established parties” wrote her off.

“Now they like to say that I am an outlier. But I know different. I know there are tens of thousands of other people like me who do not feel represented, who do not feel that politics is for them. I have a message for them: we need people like you in politics.”

During her first foray as leader in front of the media, she was unruffled and breezy, easily embracing the new spotlight with barely a hint of nerves.

‘Unashamedly ambitious’

Cairns said she is “unashamedly ambitious” about growing the party but refused to state how many seats she is targeting in the next general election, shrugging the question off by joking: “if I knew that, I would be straight down to the bookies.”

The strongest reaction from members of the party came when a journalist asked if the Soc Dems would ever merge with the Labour Party. Members descended into a chorus of boos, leading Cairns to remark: “I hope I only have to say this once. It is a categoric no.”

Cairns may be a threat to the likes of Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who presents herself and her party as an alternative version of change to Sinn Féin, but the fact is the trend towards Sinn Féin - notwithstanding recent poll wobbles - continues.

Maintaining the victories earned by outgoing Soc Dems leaders Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall - six Dáil seats and 21 councillors - will be the first challenge for Cairns and doing this in the face of a rising Sinn Féin will be no mean feat. Her first test will come uncommonly soon, at the local elections in 2024.

Beyond this, Cairns must also find a compelling way to clearly tell voters not only what the Soc Dems would do about the biggest challenges in the country - namely housing, health, and climate - but how they would do it differently to the main parties and their fellow parties on the left. Whether there is enough clear blue water between them is the big question.