What's ahead for the left as the new Dáil takes shape?

That numerical reality, while some have not accepted it as a done deal, is undeniable. The Civil War parties, while accounting for their lowest vote share total of all time, at just over 42%, will control large swathes of the next parliament.

That reality should prompt some soul-searching from those who had spent the three weeks in the general election campaign arguing that another five years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rule would be a disaster for the country.

However, the fragmentation of the Irish political landscape since 2016, coupled with Micheál Martin and Simon Harris ruling out talking to Sinn Féin, means that the path to power in the Dáil is exceptionally narrow at present.

But is there a left alternative? Can it be built in five years ahead? Or is it always destined to eat itself?

In 2020, Sinn Féin’s 24.5% of the vote saw it claim 37 seats and come back as the second-largest party in the Dáil with the largest number of votes. But a dearth of candidates meant that many of the beneficiaries of that surge were other parties of the left, some of whom parlayed that support into seats, some of whom didn’t.

Take, for example, the country’s largest vote-getter in 2020, Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay North, Denise Mitchell. Without a running mate, she took 21,344 votes, nearly a full 10,000 above the quota. When her surplus was redistributed, Independent Left and People Before Profit picked up 2,000 votes each, Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan got 1,200, and Labour’s Aodhán Ó Riordáin added 600. Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton netted just 160.

The ‘vote left, transfer left’ idea was something that parties were espousing on the doors, but was more heavily backed on social media, where it trended in the days ahead of polling. In truth, there was no formal or even informal agreement among the parties.

In the end, while Sinn Féin claimed victory and the left spoke about the latent desire for change and some in the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil benches said that Mary Lou McDonald’s party could reach the 80-TD threshold for a majority, this was disingenuous. Any coalition at that time would have asked the Green Party to work with the Healy Raes to work with People Before Profit to work with rural and regional independents. Not exactly the stability that covid-era Ireland was searching for.

In 2024, not much has changed in terms of pure numbers, but Sinn Féin is attempting to put in the work, meeting with the Social Democrats on Thursday and Labour likely next week.

The party’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin is a key cog in that machine and denies that a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael renewal is a foregone conclusion.

“Our focus is on government formation, you can see this isn’t locked in,” he told the Irish Examiner. “Our approach is that we live in the real world, but we have to be ready to provide that alternative in the short, medium, and long term.

“We’re not talking about opposition at the moment.”

Real world

However, that real world is one where if Sinn Féin was able to woo Holly Cairns and Ivana Bacik sufficiently and if Roderic O’Gorman was minded to throw in his lot alongside nine (a generous number) Independents who may be willing to back such an arrangement, they would still be 14 seats short of a Dáil majority.

Yes, Sinn Féin deserves credit for its due diligence, but the chances of a truly left government are slim. The only way those parties end up in government is with one or both of the Civil War parties, who look set to rely on Independents to get over the line.

If that does transpire, what is the left to do?

Now-retired former Labour TD Brendan Howlin is a veteran of the question of whether the left is a viable alternative. In 1997, the Labour Party ran much of its general election campaign on the basis that it was a choice between left and right, buoyed in large part by the election success of the resurgent British Labour Party under Tony Blair. However, the party would lose half of its seats and oust leader Dick Spring, having been washed away by Bertie Ahern’s popular and populist Fianna Fáil, and would merge with Democratic Left within two years.

Just days after the first election which he did not contest in 42 years, Mr Howlin strongly believes that a left-wing alternative is possible — if the parties can stop fighting.

“Of course a left-wing alternative could emerge,” said Mr Howlin. “There’s real opportunity to build a serious alternative there. The old duopoly has been shattered of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. But we have to present policies that are attuned to the needs of people. We have to explain what an interventionist state backed by taxation means.”

Mr Howlin is also clear on one thing that some of the left find somewhat unpalatable — the Labour Party is part of the solution, not the problem. Following the 2011 coalition with Fine Gael, Labour has found its brand among many of the left to be toxic, but Mr Howlin says they’re going nowhere.

“The curse of the left has been seeing those closest to you as your enemy. The next Dáil presents a chance to reverse this.

“There was no outreach from Sinn Féin until late in this election campaign and even then it excluded Labour. The Labour Party

is the anchor of that centre-left vote. We will be the anchor of that into the future and we need to build with a sense of confidence.

“We’ve survived a century because the critical core will be there. Simple mathematics will tell you, you can’t do it without us. If people are serious about building an alternative, they must acknowledge it.”

For Mick Barry, who was a Socialist Party TD for Cork North Central until last week, the answer is in getting people on the streets. While many on the left pride themselves in their grassroots work, the country hasn’t seen mass mobilisation of people on a domestic issue since water charges. Mr Barry believes that the assumed coalition can lead to the renewal of that energy.

“A right-wing government dominated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will open up opportunities for the left to mount not only a vigourous opposition in the Dáil but also people-powered politics on the streets,” said Mr Barry.

“The country is crying out for a strong housing campaign of this character. With Trump in the White House and the clock ticking towards 2030 climate, real opportunities are there also to build a youthful climate justice movement on the streets.

“I was elected in 2016 with more than 8,000 votes when social protest in the form of water charges was at a high point. If the left is going to capitalise on the opportunity offered by right-wing governments, the lessons are clear as what needs to be done on this front.”

Co-operation

The left in Ireland has long been seen as the punchline to the Brendan Behan quote about the priorities of any Irish organisation. The first item on the agenda, he said, was the split. With Democratic Left having come from the Workers’ Party, which had its roots in a dispute over the Sinn Féin name, and the Social Democrats founded by two former Labour members, there is plenty to point at.

At this stage, questions about a merger between the red and purple parties of Irish politics are so frequent that they are met with eyerolls from members of either and both sides reject the idea.

“We’re not them and they’re not us. The ideology isn’t miles apart, but the outlook is,” said one Social Democrats source. A Labour Party source says that the pair joining forces would be “pointless” as it would merely dilute support.

“We could absolutely work together in the future, but the best way of doing that is to get as many seats as possible,” said a senior Labour figure.

Mr Ó Broin agrees that co-operation on the left needn’t mean coalition.

“A lot of people are writing that for the left to grow it must coalesce, but the opposite is true,” he said, pointing to an example in his own constituency where Labour’s candidate was the popular local councillor Francis Timmons. In 2020, Mr Timmons and the Labour Party combined for 2,600 first preferences, but as a Labour candidate this time, he pulled 2,200. The point, Mr Ó Broin says, is that the assumption that combining forces improves appeal is not necessarily true.

“PR allows you vote for the party you want.

“There’s also a lot of co-operation here in Leinster House that people don’t see. The Raise the Roof housing campaign was going really well before covid. On the Climate Bill, Lynn Boylan, Réada Cronin, and Jen Whitmore came together on amendments and the Planning Bill saw myself and Cian O’Callaghan work to amend that.

“The challenge is seats, so we all have to focus is on how we maximise our votes into seats.”

Interestingly, one former government TD said that the most likely version of a left-wing government in Ireland would be a change of leadership in Fianna Fáil.

“If Micheál was gone and you had a leader like Darragh [O’Brien] who was more of that working-class Fianna Fáil, you could see something close to ‘left wing’. That’s as close as I think it comes.”

Dublin City University School of Law and Government professor of politics Gary Murphy agrees that the path to a left-wing government is narrow.

“The short answer is there’s unlikely to be a path in the next five years,” said Prof Murphy. “You’ve parties trying to find their own path and their own vote. And there’s an attraction for about half the people in the country for a version of centrism.

“I don’t see that dropping in the short term without a calamity.”

However, as the left faces those questions about the next five years, many who are seeking a change of approach will watch Labour and the Social Democrats closely. Both parties will meet with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael next week. At which point, the left could lose one of its potential building blocks and the existential questions would deepen.