Elaine Loughlin: Sinn Féin's populist TV licence stance in danger of backfiring

Sinn Féin's bill proposes the TV licence should be scrapped and an amnesty declared for all people who haven't paid. Filed picture: Andy Gibson

Sinn Féin's TV licence amnesty is being viewed as a populist act of desperation that has backfired.

Mary Lou McDonald's party has long prided itself on being in touch with the ordinary people of Ireland, the families struggling to buy groceries, those paying high rents, couples looking to buy their own home.

But floundering in the polls, the party seems to have judged the mood wrong on RTÉ with a bill, which proposes the TV licence should be scrapped and an amnesty declared for all people who haven't paid it, that feels very much like a panicked stunt to regain support.

In an unusual show of cross-party cohesion, the bill was almost immediately dismissed by both the Government and many in the opposition.

Labour's Alan Kelly said the party was simply "trying to throw dead fish on the table" to distract from its own issues, while the Social Democrats also distanced themselves from the proposals.

Independent TD Michael Healy Rae claimed Sinn Féin is simply looking ahead to elections in putting forward the bill. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was also quick to dismiss the proposal to provide an amnesty to the tens of thousands of people who have not paid the TV licence as an act of "desperation".

Mr Varadkar went on to say the suggestion that people should get away with not paying the TV licence is a "reversion to left populism" from Sinn Féin which he said "worked for them in the past and maybe they think is going to work for them again".

Cork North-Central TD, Thomas Gould, didn't help things when he made the case on Morning Ireland that ordinary people were being "dragged through the courts" each year "facing a €1,000 fine, short-term imprisonment and a charge against them", while at the same time, "executives at RTÉ are squandering millions with no accountability”.

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It left it easy for the Taoiseach to hit back: "I actually think for a lot of law-abiding, decent people who pay their bills, who pay the TV licence, they’d be quite annoyed actually at the thought that people who don’t pay their way, don’t obey the law will somehow get an amnesty from Sinn Féin and I think that is just wrong."

The problem for Sinn Féin at the moment is, having fallen from a high of 36% in 2022, the party doesn't seem to know what will work for them. One senior member yesterday acknowledged that the party is now in a predicament as it knows it cannot harness the various strands of anger that are out there because it is coming from both the left and right.

Going after that public anger on a particular issue to claw back a few percentage points in the polls could ultimately see the party slide further, the TD admitted. He suggested that Sinn Féin should now be setting its sights on winning a more realistic 30% of the vote in a general election.

Scared to put a foot wrong so close to elections, Sinn Féin has remained relatively silent on more controversial issues, especially immigration and asylum. The problem is when the party does speak up, it is getting it wrong as has been seen on RTÉ and the TV licence.