Daniel McConnell: By-election defeat a wake-up call for Varadkar and Martin
Fine Gael candidate James Geoghegan, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, and TD Simon Harris arriving at the count centre for the Dublin Bay South by-election at Simmonscourt, RDS in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
In 2013, then-taoiseach Enda Kenny received as he called it a "wallop" from the Irish people when they rejected his attempt to abolish the Seanad.
He and his government were left humiliated just two years into office.
Similarly, it is often said that governments don’t win by-elections, and the result in Dublin Bay South has certainly continued that trend.
The stunning win by Labour’s Ivana Bacik, confounding her own party’s poor national opinion poll rating of just 3%, is in itself a story worth telling, but the fallout for the three government parties cannot be ignored.
On one level, the result can be taken as a clear rejection of the Government’s performance and a clear and decisive demand for a change given the poorer than expected performance of all three government party candidates.
However, the failure of Fine Gael’s James Geoghegan to win the seat vacated by former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy represents the latest in what is now a long line of electoral failures for Leo Varadkar.
The lack of a Fine Gael standard-bearer in the constituency of Garret FitzGerald is a remarkable position to be in, even after a long stint in Government.
Having been elevated to the position of Fine Gael leader in 2017 on the promise that he would lead the party to electoral nirvana, there are now significant questions to be asked over his leadership style, decision making and, more fundamentally, his authority over his troops.
The obvious question is the decision to eschew Kate O’Connell, a well-known former TD as the candidate given her high profile.
The falling out between Varadkar, his team and O’Connell dates back to the leadership race when she backed Simon Coveney and branded Varadkar’s supporters as “choirboys” who were “singing for their suppers”.
Varadkar’s refusal to name O’Connell in his Seanad nominees spoke volumes and showed to everyone just how out in the wilderness she was.
Back in April when Murphy announced his resignation, the position of O’Connell immediately came into focus.
While, to many, she was the obvious candidate to challenge the male-only line up in Dublin Bay South, the internal politics of Fine Gael were not so straightforward.
Geoghegan’s name was quickly being proffered up by party sources as the most likely choice of the party to contest.
On paper, he appeared to be the perfect candidate.
With his incredible pedigree in terms of his legal background and lineage, Geoghegan is also a polished media performer and was able to cope with intense scrutiny from the media without any major disasters.
However, in reality, he struggled to define himself as a voice for the “locked out” generation and certainly failed to convince anyone beyond the core Fine Gael voters that after 10 years in government, he was an agent for change.
If the disastrous 2020 general election shattered the myth of Varadkar’s supposed X-factor, this loss compounds his misfortune.
This defeat means his record as leader is now five by-election defeats, a general election reversal and a poor 2019 local elections which saw Fianna Fáil remain the largest party at local level, all of which means he is now in a defensive position in a way he has never been before.
Examining the campaign, it was clear that in the wake of the poll which gave first confirmation of the Bacik surge, Fine Gael’s strategy to attack Sinn Féin and pitch the contest as a two-horse race appeared to have been a mistake.
The party was forced to pivot its message to one of Fine Gael versus Sinn Féin to one of Government versus the Opposition.
From being the frontrunner in the race, the party appeared to now be in defensive mode.
The party knew that if Bacik was to run Geoghegan close, within seven points, then he was vulnerable to be overtaken on transfers.
The constituency has seen a never-ending stream of party heavyweights like Varadkar, Simon Harris, who was the campaign director, ministers Paschal Donohoe, Simon Coveney and Heather Humphreys in recent weeks in a bid to secure the seat.
A handwritten note from Varadkar, distributed last weekend, pleading to voters to elect Geoghegan, as he “needs him on my team” came off as panicky and desperate.
A 4am leaflet drop on the morning of polling and an eleventh-hour social media ad warning of a Sinn Féin surge at the polls on Thursday did little to ease those impressions of a campaign that was slipping away.
While Simon Harris, as director of elections, may come in for some uncomfortable questions, it could be argued he did what he could with the hand he was dealt.
Had he been dealing with O’Connell as a candidate, one suspects it would have been a very different campaign.
For one thing, had O’Connell stood, Lynn Boylan would not have.
Varadkar will have to face an increasingly tetchy parliamentary party next week and while his authority is not in direct threat, it is clear those who are not happy will feel emboldened and less shy in giving him and his core team a good kicking.
Varadkar, for all his promise, ability, and image of decisive leadership, has precious little to look to by way of electoral success.
The Fine Gael leader has often been compared to Bertie Ahern in terms of being Teflon and immune to criticism, but the big difference is that Ahern was an electoral asset for his party, leading them to three successive election wins.
While Fine Gael party figures were essentially conceding even before the first count was announced, they were seeking to point out that as bad a day it was for them, it was much, much worse for Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil.
That is true.
The poor showing by councillor Deirdre Conroy was incredible in the context of the dominance of Fianna Fáil over Irish politics since its foundation in 1926.
Conroy’s 4.6% first preference vote is simply a disaster for the party which had shown signs in 2019 of reasserting itself in the capital.
Not only does this result leave Martin under fresh pressure, with his leadership again in question, but it also begs the question — what now for Jim O’Callaghan?
The clear heir apparent in Fianna Fáil, he was selected as director of election by Martin as a means of blunting his threat internally in the case of the result not being good.
He has certainly done that, but the size and scale of Bacik’s victory means O’Callaghan’s hold on his seat is now in serious jeopardy.
On this result, Bacik would be assured of a seat in the next election and it will be at O’Callaghan’s expense.
Like Enda Kenny, both Varadkar and Martin have been given a fair old wallop by the good citizens of Dublin Bay South.
They will have to steady their respective ships in the coming days and we can expect plenty of talk about needing to listen to the voters.
Fine Gael will seek to explain the loss away but, in truth, this is a seat they could and should have held.
They ultimately paid a price for picking the wrong candidate on this occasion and Varadkar alone must assume the blame for that.
He allowed personal animus to trump what was in the best interests of the party – victory.
For Martin, he is facing a more existential question. Just what is his party’s relevance to Dubliners anymore? That is a far more difficult question to answer.
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