Irish Examiner view: Parties ought to address rural Ireland in Election 2024 debate

Farmer Sean Moher on his farm at Croughmore, Mitchelstown, Co Cork. The larger political parties need to address obvious city/country divides if they are to secure the support they once took for granted. Picture: Dan Linehan

In the white heat of an election campaign, political parties and their many advisers, consultants, vote-getting gurus, and other specialists agonise about mobilising voters in their favour. In the scramble to get people to the ballot boxes with tantalising promises, often vague idealism, and rampant accusations about the capability of others, it often seems that some sectors get overlooked or undervalued in terms of their worth to individual parties.

As we highlighted in yesterday’s Irish Examiner, the farming community, once one of the most potent voices in any election, has been strangely quiet this time as the focus lasers in on housing, the cost of living, and immigration.