The political parties

There are 20 political parties overall with nearly 700 candidates, including more than 170 independents, are standing. However, none of the 20 parties in the race are fielding sufficiently enough candidates to win an overall majority on their own. So the outcome will be another coalition government.

Briefly the 20 political parties cover the full political spectrum from extreme right to extreme left in varying degrees and shades of opinion. However, the main parties in contention for forming the next government or been the official opposition are either centre right or centre left of the political spectrum.

Those parties on the centre right are Fianna fail and Fail Gael. Those on the centre left are Sinn Fein, Labour, Greens and Social Democrats. The PBP/Solidarity are on the left and Trotskyist influenced and inspired. The Workers Party is the only Marxist-Leninist party standing in this election.

Sinn Féin aspires above all to territorial Irish Unity and has policies which are on the social democrartic left. The party advocates for the reunification of Ireland and a cross-class ideology of 'fairness' for all.. Fianna Fáil adheres to conservative values and advocates for the promotion of Irish culture and identity. Fine Gael as a party adheres to conservative values and advocates for free-market principles, personal freedom, and individual responsibility. Fianna Fail also has very similar politics to Fine Gael on the free market and personal freedom.

The main issues in the general election campaign and the promises they make.

If you were to choose four main issues of concern for the voters in this general election then they would be: Cost of living, Housing, Healthcare, and Immigration and asylum, and, to a much lesser extent, emigration.

issues of concern for the voters in this general election then they would be: Cost of living, Housing, Healthcare, and Immigration and asylum (not emigration). Crime will also be an issue, but this will vary from area to area. And not necessarily purely an urban issue.

The cost of living will depend on a person’s individual budget so the more disposable income a person’s has the less cost of living will impinge on their life style, whereas the less disposable income a person has the more it will affect their overall health and life style. A lot of people continue to feel the lasting impact of inflation and so the price of food and goods remains a priority.


One long-time issue in Ireland, has been the housing crisis and it is sure to be one of the deciding factors in a party winning votes as it will be foremost in the minds of voters as they head to the polls at the end of the month. Housing has consistently ranked high in opinion polls on issues which matter most to people. The government has been seen to have not supplied sufficient affordable housing in volume to tackle the housing problem.

Immigration is a controversial topic particularly over the past few years, with those on the right turning to protests and even violent demonstrations over the issue of accommodation for refugees.

Last November, riots and violence erupted on the streets of Dublin sparked by far-right and anti-immigrant sentiment after a young girl was attacked at a school in Dublin's city centre.

Parties tend to agree that the issue of immigration is linked to concerns around housing and that solving the housing crisis will lessen concerns over asylum accommodation.

The ‘left’ and Sinn Féin in the elections

Sinn Féin is on the left in the same way that from 1997-2010 the UK governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were ‘left’ governments. Brown, as Chancellor and later Prime Minister, oversaw a free market economy with some downward distribution of tax monies to the poorest via welfare payments. Numbers of people in poverty fell but only as a result of increased welfare payments, which were subsequently withdrawn. Nothing substantially changed for working people. Labour minister Peter Mandelson summed up New Labour economics when he said, “we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich -as long as they pay their taxes ". Sinn Féin has a similar attitude to the economy.

In 2022 the Irish Times reported a concerted effort at the highest levels of SF to court big business, with its leader Mary Lou McDonald travelling to Silicon Valley to deliver addresses and, when courting 'genocide Joe' Biden in Washington earlier this year, singing the praises of the control of the Irish economy by US multinationals. “We’re used to different political parties trying to use the fear factor,” said SF economics spokesperson Pearse Doherty in 2022. “Sinn Féin are pro-business.”

If Sinn Féin manages to form a coalition government after the elections (an unlikely scenario) it will combine an adherence to low corporate taxation with some mildly redistributive sticking-plaster policies. Nothing of substance will change and any mildly progressive taxation policies will easily be reversed by a future government.

Meanwhile, despite some dissent among its grassroots, People before Profit have made it clear that they are eager to take a cabinet seat in a Sinn Féin-led coalition. A recent PbP pamphlet advocated “in advance of an election to vote for Mary Lou McDonald as taoiseach if she is willing to lead a government that does not include Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael”. This would, “represent a strategic advance for leftwing politics, because it would both increase the confidence of workers and also put Sinn Féin to the test in the eyes of their supporters.” The threadbare 'radicalism' and blatant opportunism of PbP is revealed in their own words.