As Sinn Féin prepares for pivotal election, voters north and south ask what the party stands for

Irish Examiner political staff Aoife Moore and Elaine Loughlin run the rule over Sinn Féin's policies on a number of key issues

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald signs a copy of the 1916 Proclamation, with vice president Michelle O’Neill and Jemma Dolan during the party’s manifesto launch in Belfast. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

POLITICS in the North is on the cusp of history on Thursday if the latest polling is anything to go by.

For the first time in 100 years, an election in the North may return a nationalist majority. 

Sinn Féin looks likely to become the largest party in Stormont in an election that could see Michelle O’Neill, the party’s leader in the North, become first minister. The latest opinion poll puts Sinn Féin on 26%, seven points ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on 19%.

The party seems unstoppable in the Republic too, continuing to build on their success in the election of February 2020, and seemingly unstoppable, despite a number of trip-ups since then.

The possibility of Sinn Féin running a government on both sides of the border is a real one and would arguably give Sinn Féin the mandate to call for a border poll.

The party’s ultimate goal is to reunify the country and if it is voted in on both sides of the border, it can argue that the polling reflects the public feels the same. 

The party is an all-island one and has been accused of having different policies north and south on a number of matters. The Irish Examiner studied the main policy areas where Sinn Féin has been accused of poetry in the South and prose in the North.

Jeffrey Donaldson (centre) at the launch of the DUP’s election manifesto last Thursday. His party has hardened its position on the protocol in a bid to retain votes it is at risk of shedding to the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Picture: Mark Marlow/PA

HOUSING 

Housing could be the issue that wins Sinn Féin the election on both sides of the border. However, the party goes about it in different ways north and south.

The party’s policies in both jurisdictions are mostly identical in their most recent manifestos: Further legislation to protect
private renters from unfair rents, improve housing standards, and ending unfair letting fees.

However, there are subtle but important differences.

In their Northern manifesto, released this month, the party says it would “introduce regulations to deliver fair rents including reducing or freezing rents” whereas in the south, the manifesto claimed a Sinn Féin government would “reduce and freeze rents for three years”.

Sinn Féin holds the housing portfolio in Northern Ireland, with Deirdre Hargey currently minister for communities.

Its first time holding the office, Sinn Féin’s housing plan was dubbed “the biggest shakeup of the housing system for over 50 years” and was well received by most of Stormont.

So far, Hargey has introduced legislation, for the duration of the pandemic, to protect private renters which means landlords now have to give tenants a 12-week notice to quit period before seeking a court order to evict and has also limited the amount a landlord can charge for a deposit to no more than one month’s rent.

At local council level, councillors for Sinn Féin have voted very differently. The party chairs and is the largest party on Belfast City Council’s planning committee. The party has supported student blocks in the city, despite objections from residents in some instances, while Belfast has seen a regeneration in the last decade with new hotels and office blocks springing up at a breakneck speed.

Belfast, unlike Dublin, has no height restriction on its buildings, and Sinn Féin councillors have voted on and approved a number of buildings which would never have seen the light of day in Dublin city.

Of the five tallest buildings on the island of Ireland, four are in Belfast and the city has twice as many buildings over 15 floors than its southern counterpart.

Build-to-rent is another area where the party seems to differ north and south.

Belfast City Council, where Sinn Féin is the largest party, with 18 seats, approved the largest build-to-rent development to date in the city this month — a £117m (€140m) apartment complex across three blocks in the Titanic Quarter.

Just 20% of the 778 apartments will be housing association-managed, with the rest marketed to investors.

Among recent build-to-rent approvals is a 19-storey block which Sinn Féin councillors voted for, next to a busy motorway where residents are looking out at a railway bridge, car parking, and an M3 slip road.

Another build-to-rent development in the city, on the Ormeau Rd, markets two-bedroom apartments for £1,500 a month, while the average rent in Northern Ireland is £718 per month.

In the Republic, the party has been averse to the build-to-rent model.

In January this year, Eoin O’Broin said: “Some parts of [Dublin] are witnessing planning applications which consist solely of build-to-rent dwellings. These are built of a lower standard than build-to-buy and are far too expensive for most ordinary workers to rent.

“Of course, delivering build-to-rent apartments is an ideal project for developers due to these lower standards and the higher profit margins.”

 

Party leader Colum Eastwood has seen a resurgence of support for the SDLP in recent years, but it could suffer in Thursday’s elections if nationalists coalesce behind Sinn Féin. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

CLIMATE 

The Taoiseach once accused Sinn Féin of making an “each-way bet” on climate change due to the party’s stance on the carbon tax.

A LucidTalk poll in conjunction with the Belfast Telegraph surveyed attitudes to the environment in the North and found that 93% of Sinn Féin voters were concerned about the climate emergency and a majority of the party’s voters were in favour of additional carbon tax to tackle the issue, with 53% willing to pay for environmental initiatives.

The party is managing a balancing act between climate and farmers on both sides of the border. In the north, Sinn Féin backed a Green Party bill which commits to net-zero emissions by 2045.

The executive has yet to agree its first climate action plan in line with the bill next year so it remains to be seen if they can maintain north-south consistency.

DUP minister Edwin Poots said the party was “abandoning the farmers who are living in the hills and the uplands of Northern Ireland” after a report on the bill found that the herd numbers for farms across Northern Ireland would significantly reduce if the bill were to be actioned.

Sinn Féin MLA Philip McGuigan rejected the assertion that Sinn Féin held a different policy in the Republic: “Across this island Sinn Féin speak with one voice.”

Sinn Féin’s manifesto for the elections on Thursday claims the party “was to the fore in delivering climate legislation for the north that is ambitious, fair and deliverable…in line with the rest of Ireland.”

The literature also notes the need to develop our abundant solar, tidal, and onshore and offshore wind resources across the island and develop the potential of green hydrogen.

In the south, a Sinn Féin private members’ bill on wind turbines drafted back in 2016 saw the party attempt to make building wind farms more difficult, amid local opposition in the Midlands at the time. The proposed legislation was quickly withdrawn by whip Pádraig MacLochlainn as it appeared to differ from the current policy, and was described by one party source to the Irish Examiner as “shite”.

When asked previously, party president Mary Lou McDonald refused to commit Sinn Féin to a specific figure for emissions cuts in agriculture.

The party is against the Mercosur trade deal with South American countries and says this should be rejected by the
Government rather than taking issue with the size of the national herd.

The party is opposed to carbon tax, with spokesperson Lynn Boylan saying: “Our position on the climate tax is based on evidence ... it’s nothing to do with populism.”

Ms Boylan argued that such taxes have not worked elsewhere in reducing carbon emissions.

There are no such carbon taxes in Northern Ireland.

They have also called for a moratorium on the establishment of new data centres.

Support for the Alliance Party led by Naomi Long has surged at recent elections and opinion polls suggest that rise is set to continue. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

ABORTION

“The North is next” read the cardboard sign held aloft by Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill at Dublin Castle.

As the passing of the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment was announced on a sunny day in 2018, Sinn Féin made it clear that changing laws in the other six counties was next on their agenda.

However, with the Assembly collapsed for three years, it took the intervention of the British government to progress and publish details of the new legal framework for abortion services in Northern Ireland which has yet to be fully established.

When the issue of abortion came up in the Stormont Assembly last year later, Sinn Féin abstained in an initial vote, sparking criticism and accusations that the party has been “speaking out of both sides of their mouths”.

During the Assembly debate in March 2021, Sinn Féin spoke out strongly against a DUP bill which sought to amend the law in Northern Ireland to prevent abortions in cases of non-fatal disabilities, including Down syndrome.

Michelle O’Neill claimed the bill was “the thin end of the wedge” and accused the DUP of attempting “to reopen a debate that has already been had”.

“Women are entitled to have compassionate healthcare,” she said.

But despite the vocal opposition, Sinn Féin members then abstained on the vote, resulting in the bill passing its second stage by 48 votes to 12.

Their actions set social media alight, with even the Derry Girls actress Siobhan McSweeney, who plays Sr Michael in the show, directly tweeting at Sinn Féin: “By abstaining last night you essentially voted with the DUP”.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, who left Sinn Féin due to his own anti-abortion stance, accused the party of “speaking out of both sides of their mouth” on the issue.

Alliance for Choice co-convener Naomi Connor said Sinn Féin has been on “a journey” from a party that was not pro-choice, to one in which is now in favour of providing abortion services.

However, she said that “in the past there has been a lack of clarity as to what that actually means”.

She said Alliance for Choice has met and heavily lobbied members of Sinn Féin who had been willing to listen.

“I do believe that Sinn Féin were influenced and took a more progressive stance,” she added.

Interestingly, the party’s general election manifestos both North and South make no reference to either abortion or termination.

The pre-election document published ahead of the upcoming Assembly election only states that the party “want women to be able to access the safe and legal health services they are entitled to.”

The only reference to abortion services in the 2020 general election manifesto was a commitment to introduce safe access zones.

  

WELFARE 

Public spending in the North is delivered through three layers of government: Westminster, Stormont, and the 11 local councils.

Sinn Féin currently holds the finance portfolio in the North, with minister Conor Murphy at the helm.

Westminster’s autumn budget in 2021 delivered the largest annual funding settlement to Northern Ireland since devolution at £15bn (€17.8m).

Conor Murphy’s proposed budget plan for the next three years would see funding cut to several departments as Mr Murphy sought to prioritise spending on Northern Ireland’s under-pressure health system by giving it a 10% increase in funding.

Almost £9 in every £10 of public spending in the North flows through Stormont — 89% of total spending — while Westminster is responsible for 7%, and local councils the remaining 4%.

Social welfare rates are determined by the chancellor of the exchequer and are uniform throughout the UK.

Therefore, the Northern Ireland Executive, and Mr Murphy do not have any say in welfare rates, including Jobseeker’s Allowance.

However, under Mr Murphy, Stormont awarded £230 to every household in the North at a cost of £177m for the current cost-of-living crisis and £100 to those on benefits who were previous recipients of the energy payment support scheme at a cost of £27m.

In the south, Sinn Féin advocated back in February for much the same thing in the Republic, with Pearse Doherty saying the payment would be made on top of the Government’s proposed €100 energy credit if the party was in power in the Dáil.

Sinn Féin unanimously supported legislation
in Stormont which raised the pension age to 66 in 2012.

However, this is no longer the party’s position and it advocates the pension age returning to 65 for the entire island.

HUNTING 

A different type of border fox became the issue when Sinn Féin was accused of having different approaches on hunting north and south.

The party was forced to defend its position on hunting, after it opposed a bill that would have banned hunting with dogs in Northern Ireland last year.

Many pointed to the fact that party president Mary Lou McDonald had previously indicated that Sinn Féin was against the practice and would vote in favour of a ban at the next opportunity.

The bill aimed to bring Northern Ireland into line with Britain, where hunting wild mammals with dogs is outlawed.

However, Sinn Féin MLAs were among the 45 Assembly members who voted down the bill, prompting calls on the party to clarify whether its position is consistent in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood tweeted: “So Sinn Féin are against fox hunting in the south and for it in the north. Right. What happens if a fox runs across the border?”

In a statement, Sinn Féin’s
agriculture spokesperson in the North, Declan McAleer, said his party “opposes the unnecessary infliction of cruelty to animals”.

TD Matt Carthy also defended the move stating that the bill had been a “barrister’s dream, to put it mildly” before adding that “bans in these instances don’t work, what we need to do is work with rural communities, in particular, to ensure that we have regulations in place”.

He said there are “different reasons for hunting with dogs, including protection of biodiversity, including other animal welfare issues,” adding that hunting can be used as a form of “pest control”.

Explaining how Sinn Féin policy is arrived at, Mr Carthy told RTÉ radio: “There is no other political party in which the members collectively, including elected representatives and leadership, set political policies.”

It prompted PBP-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy to tell the Dáil that Sinn Féin’s “attempt to ride two horses at once reached its zenith with Deputy Carthy’s appearance on the radio where he attempted to say that Sinn Féin was opposed to a ban on fox hunting because of biodiversity, which makes no sense whatsoever”.

He added that animal rights campaigners — and members within Sinn Féin who support a ban on hare coursing — should put pressure on the party leadership and tell them not to be on the wrong side of history on this issue.

 

Unionism could face a seismic shift in this election 

by Lisa O'Carroll 

What are the polls saying?

The latest of a series of LucidTalk tracker polls for the Belfast Telegraph put Sinn Féin at 26% of the total vote (up one point), followed by the DUP at 19% (up two points), followed by the centrist Alliance party at 16%.

The unionist vote is splitting three ways — with the DUP followed by the Ulster Unionist party at 13% and the Traditional Unionist Voice party, which offers a more radical anti-protocol policy than the DUP, at 9%.

Why is this significant?

If the projections are realised at the ballot box, Sinn Féin’s leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, would become first minister — and a party that favours a united Ireland, and that retains a policy of absenteeism in relation to its MPs in Westminster, would lead the government.

The SDLP was flat at 11%. The Greens, People Before Profit, and others, including independents, came in at 2% of the vote each.

Another survey by the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool suggests the emergence of a secular unionism among younger voters — people from both Protestant and Catholic traditions fed up with identity politics but supporting the union.

What would it mean for the DUP?

Peter Shirlow, a professor at the Institute of Irish Studies, says that while many unionists fear a united Ireland, a win for Sinn Féin will be a “wake-up call” for unionism for a different reason.

He said his research over the past decade showed the growth of a secular unionism among people within the Protestant and Catholic heritages who want to stay in the UK but who will not use their vote “just to keep the other side out”.

“It might be a unionist electoral crisis, but not a constitutional crisis,” he said. “It will be the death throes of Protestant unionism, a rejection, not of the constitutional position but people saying ‘enough, we support the union, but we won’t vote for homophobes, we won’t vote for misogynists, we won’t vote for this never-ending crisis politics’.

“It doesn’t seem that people are seeing this as a big opportunity for nationalism either. Sinn Féin is Sinn Féin but parties like the SDLP are flat as a pancake,” he says.

One thing parties have to get away from, and particularly unionist parties, “is the misnomer that rights are concessions” to the other side, he says.

His tracker panel found that two thirds of nationalists believed that if “devolved politics worked better, people would focus less on the constitutional question” of whether the North was part of the UK or Ireland.

Governance vying with bread and butter issues

by David Young

NORTHERN IRELAND goes to the polls on Thursday to elect 90 Assembly members to the devolved legislature in Belfast.

The last Assembly election, a snap poll in March 2017, was held as crisis engulfed the powersharing institutions, which had collapsed two months earlier amid a row about a botched green energy scheme.

Fast forward five years to Thursday when voters will cast their ballots with a similar cloud of uncertainty hanging over Stormont.

The ministerial executive imploded in February when the DUP withdrew its first minister Paul Givan in protest at the Northern Ireland protocol — the post-Brexit trading arrangement that has enraged unionists by creating economic barriers between the North and Britain.

Here are some of the main issues and themes that have dominated the election campaign and are set to factor when the votes are counted and efforts to form a new administration begin.

The race for first minister

Somewhat confusingly for outside observers, there is no legal difference or power disparity between Stormont’s first and deputy first ministers — their co-equal status is a cornerstone of the region’s powersharing structures.

Under current rules, the largest unionist party occupies one of the posts and the largest nationalist party occupies the other, with the first minister’s job going to the one that has more seats. A properly functioning ministerial executive cannot be formed without both roles being filled.

Since 1998, when the governance system was devised as part of Northern Ireland’s historic peace accord, the first minister has always been a unionist.

While Sinn Féin would gain no more authority if it displaces the DUP as the largest party and its Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill assumes the first minister’s job, it would undoubtedly be a symbolically significant moment in the post-Good Friday Agreement era.

Just how significant has been intensely debated during the campaign.

The DUP has insisted that Sinn Féin would be emboldened to call for a border poll on Irish unity if it emerged as the largest party.

Unionist rivals characterise that as a scare tactic designed to shore up DUP support in the wake of a series of opinion polls that put the party well behind Sinn Féin.

The republican party, for its part, has maintained that it is prioritising the cost-of-living crisis over a push for constitutional change at this election.

Cost of living, waiting lists, and the prospects of a swift return to powersharing

There is the real possibility that Sinn Féin could emerge as the largest party but be prevented from taking up the first minister’s post — certainly in the short to medium term — due to a lack of a willing partner in government.

Despite intense media questioning on the issue, neither the DUP or UUP have said they will serve as deputy first minister alongside a Sinn Féin first minister.

Their critics have denounced this stance as undemocratic and it potentially runs the risk of galvanising infuriated nationalist voters to back Sinn Féin in greater numbers.

The DUP and UUP have responded to the criticism by insisting any decision on entering an executive should only be taken with knowledge of what the new administration’s proposed programme for government would look like.

Stormont’s smaller parties have challenged the DUP and Sinn Féin to defuse the issue by agreeing to change the names to “joint first ministers” — titles that perhaps more accurately reflect the roles. While Sinn Féin once proposed such a move, the party has now stepped back from that position, insisting that if it was good enough for a nationalist to serve as a deputy first minister it should be good enough for a unionist too.

If nationalist voters do coalesce behind Sinn Féin, the obvious casualty would be the SDLP.

The party has shown signs of resurgence in recent years, as it has sought to promote young talent to its frontline positions, but it always faces the peril of being squeezed in a battle between the DUP and Sinn Féin for top spot.

Not surprisingly, leader Colum Eastwood has dismissed the fuss over the first minister’s job as a distraction as he has tried to steer the electorate’s focus onto bread and butter issues such as soaring living costs and spiralling health service waiting lists.

The SDLP is not alone in concentrating on the real life difficulties facing an increasing number of households in the region.

All parties accept there are too many citizens struggling to heat their homes or waiting years for a consultant-led hospital appointment and addressing those twin concerns has been front and centre of all the main manifestos.

In that context, the DUP has taken plenty of political flak for pulling down the executive at a time of such acute need across society.

It has justified the move by insisting the Northern Ireland protocol is contributing to rising consumer prices and health service pressures and radical action was therefore required to force changes to it.

Aside from the issue of a Sinn Féin first minister, the DUP has made clear it will not re-enter an administration without major changes to the protocol.

While there are parallels with the crisis of 2017 — albeit back then Sinn Féin was the party that quit government — there are important differences too.

The major difference is a recent law change that means an executive can trundle on in shadow format for six months without a first and deputy first minister in place.

Before that change, failure to nominate to those positions within a week would have led to full-scale collapse of devolution and would have placed an onus on the UK government to call another election.

With this buffer now in place, and departmental ministers from the last mandate able to continue in their jobs, few Stormont watchers are placing bets on a new executive being formed in the immediate aftermath of the election.

The protocol

Contention over the so-called Irish Sea border has been a source of political and societal tension in the North since it came into place at the start of 2021 under the terms of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

Jointly agreed by the UK and EU as a means to keep the Irish land border free-flowing, it shifted regulatory and customs checks to goods moving between Britain and the North.

Many unionists and loyalists are furious about arrangements they claim are driving a constitutional wedge between the North and the rest of the UK.

The other Stormont parties, which backed Remain in the Brexit referendum and represented a majority overall in the Assembly in the last mandate, acknowledge that changes to the protocol are needed to cut the burden of red tape on businesses.

However, they insist the main thrust of the arrangement — that the North is
afforded special status to
enable its exporters to trade freely across the border into the Republic and further into the EU single market — should be retained.

For these parties, their stance on the protocol is unlikely to make or break their electoral fortunes.

For unionist parties, however, the Irish Sea border will assume much more significance on polling day.

While all unionist MLAs from the last mandate oppose the protocol, they differ on how to bring about changes.

The fallout over the Brexit deal was a key factor in the unprecedented turmoil that engulfed the DUP last year, when two leaders, Arlene Foster and her successor Edwin Poots, were ousted in successive internal revolts that occurred within weeks of each other.

That flux came amid poor polling results and fears within party ranks that the unionist electorate would blame the DUP for the protocol, accusing it of squandering its unprecedented influence in the Brexit process during the two-year confidence-and-supply deal with the Conservatives at Westminster.

The harder line Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party is hoping to capitalise on the DUP’s travails and has adopted a strident anti-protocol approach.

Critics have previously derided the TUV as a one-man band that relies solely on its leader, formidable barrister Jim Allister, for an identity.

While opinion polls suggest the party could be poised for a breakthrough in this election, with the potential to mop up disaffected DUP voters, it still faces a significant challenge translating any increase in overall vote share into physical seats in the keenly-fought five-seat constituencies.

On the other wing of unionism, UUP leader Doug Beattie has been trying to move his party more to the centre ground, insisting that engagement and negotiation rather that protest and government walk-outs are the way to bring about changes to the protocol.

The decorated military veteran is betting that any votes he loses from the ranks of traditional unionism he will make up by attracting more liberal unionists into the UUP fold.

The DUP has undoubtedly hardened its position on the protocol over the last 18 months as it bids to retain votes it was otherwise at risk of shedding to the TUV. This strategy culminated with leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s move to withdraw the party’s first minister from the executive.

He is now a regular on the podium alongside Mr Allister at anti-protocol rallies organised by loyalist groups. Some of the gatherings have proved controversial and at one — in a clear sign of the tensions within the broader unionist family — a poster of Mr Beattie with a noose around his neck was seen.

The role that outgoing independent unionist MLAs Claire Sugden and Alex Easton, the latter a former DUP representative, could play in final shake-out of results should not be discounted and both will be confident of retaining their seats.

The rise of the ‘others’

Sinn Féin had a very good election in 2017, winning 27 seats, and arguably maxed out its potential in several constituencies by capturing three of the five seats available. The DUP, by contrast, spread its 28 seats more broadly, winning more doubles with surplus votes to spare. In theory, that means Sinn Féin would have to do very well to make gains on its 2017 tally, while the DUP could absorb a dip in popular support and still hold on to its seats in multiple constituencies.

It is possible that Sinn Féin could lose a number of seats but still emerge as the largest party, if the DUP loses more. If that scenario plays out, it will likely mean that the Alliance Party has had a very good election.

Support for the cross-community centrist party has surged at recent elections and all opinion polls indicate that rise is set to continue. Alliance has long been the smallest of the five main Stormont parties but a good showing on Thursday could see it leap above the UUP and the SDLP to become the third largest party.

Leader Naomi Long claims a big result for Alliance can herald the end of a political system based on binary division.

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Stormont currently uses a community designation method that effectively hands blocs of unionists or nationalists a veto in contentious votes. That means parties that designate as neither, such as Alliance, the Greens and People Before Profit (PBP), cannot influence votes where the results are determined by how many unionists and nationalists support or reject a proposal.

The Greens are confident of retaining their two seats and PBP its single seat in West Belfast. Both parties would need to have a very good day to make gains.

A strong showing overall for the parties that make up the designation known as ‘the others’ would undoubtedly strengthen the hand of those calling for reforms they claim are needed to reflect adequately the increasing diversity in society in the North.