Fine Gael will be left wondering why seats there for the taking were not won
Pictures: Greystones, The Leader Shoreline Count And Centre At Wicklow Gael In Election Wire Simon Co Carson/pa Fine Harris At Leisure Niall Taoiseach
As Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe arrived in the RDS on Saturday evening, he was quick to make a point about Sinn Féin.
"The weakest opposition party in Europe," he dubbed them, honing in on a particular line of coalition attack.
While Mary Lou McDonald touted her party's results as transformative, her party's seat gains come despite a large loss in voters — down 5.5 percentage points on 2020 — and Fianna Fáil and, particularly, Fine Gael, wants you to know this.
The coalition argument is that in a year where incumbent governments have taking electoral beatings across the globe in recent years — America, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, India — Ireland's two biggest parties are getting set to renew vows on a courtship that started in 2016 and became a marriage in 2020.
Five more years, shorn of the Green Party curbing its wishes, is a win and Sinn Féin's inability to dent the coalition position after four and a half years is a loss.
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While there is merit to that argument, Sinn Féin left the 33rd Dáil with 33 seats and will enter the 34th Dáil with either 39 or 40.
Fine Gael left the same Dáil with 32 TDs and will return with 38 or 39. All that really separates the parties in terms of electoral outcome is Micheál Martin's willingness to talk.
Some in Fine Gael will argue their big impediment was a lack of incumbents, a pre-election exodus forcing the party into running a swathe of unknowns. But was that an issue?
The party had 17 constituencies in which it had to win back a seat being vacated by an incumbent retiring. It did so in 13 — Carlow-Kilkenny, Cavan-Monaghan, Clare, Cork East, Cork North-West, Cork South-Central, Dublin Bay North, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin West, Galway East, Laois, Louth and Mayo.
On top of that, first-time TDs were elected in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin Bay South, Dublin Fingal West, Offaly, Tipperary South, Waterford, Wicklow, and, Wicklow-Wexford. The party did not struggle to get new faces over the line because they were unknown.
Of the seats being vacated by retirees the party did not hold, Joe McHugh's in Donegal was lost three years ago over the issue of mica, and Meath West's Linda Nelson Murray missing out to Aisling Dempsey was a marker of how the day went — Fianna Fáil took close seats and Fine Gael did not.
The others — Kerry and Wexford — were strategic missteps. In Kerry, running Billy O'Shea ahead of three willing local councillors backfired and the party lost the seat left behind by Brendan Griffin.
In Wexford, a decision not to run a candidate from the town saw Paul Kehoe's old seat lost out in large part to the electoral performance of former Fine Gael candidate and now independent Verona Murphy.
Having picked up seats and held its voter base steady, there will be no major inquest in Fine Gael and Simon Harris's position is not under threat. There will, however, be a review of how the election went that should not only focus on the three-week blitz following the dissolution of the Dáil.
Much has been made about Simon Harris and Fine Gael's missteps in the three weeks following the calling of the election, but questions should be asked about how the entire pre-campaign was handled.
The party received a shot in the arm with Mr Harris's unexpected ascension to Taoiseach in April but its polling peaked at 27% in September and has been declining since.
In that respect, holding 21% of the vote is a win, but having spent the summer travelling the highways and byways of the country, Mr Harris seemed to hesitate.
While the public had accepted an election would be called in either September or October – politicians said publicly the public did not care, but accepted privately the question of timing was being asked — the Taoiseach seemed caught in two minds. Asked consistently when an election would come, he was evasive, splitting hairs on whether "full term" mean the full legally allowed timeframe or when the substantive work of government was passed. At one point, he dismissed a question on what year the election would take place.
The outworking of that was a stasis around Leinster House. A suspended animation in which the only TDs around on some days were those who had handed in their notices while the rest got ready to begin knocking doors.
In late September, concession was made to Fine Gael parliamentary party members to attend weekly meetings by Zoom and still the Taoiseach kept a straight face when asked for a timetable. Some of that was necessary — there was a budget and other legislation to pass — but it partly came off as gunshyness.
Fine Gael had been adding candidates at a decent speed, but still felt chaotic in places — a row over the number of candidates in Mayo or who was allowed canvas where in Clare, an inability to find a Kerry candidate for a long time.
In the end, it was Mr Harris's coalition partner Roderic O'Gorman who announced the date — November 29 — after the three leaders had agreed in principle it would happen before the new year.
Of course, setting the date was still in the gift of Mr Harris, but the public narrative was set on the date. What was left was for Mr Harris to dissolve the Dáil. But even that got caught in a mire of speculation and, eventually, Micheál Martin told the country when it was happening.
From the Áras to Castleknock, Mr Harris got on the road with gusto, hitting most constituencies (though astutely avoiding Louth where a John McGahon-shaped controversy awaited).
However, his speed was taken as a negative by some. Other parties say Mr Harris's tempo of interactions came off as inauthentic, something that was magnified in a Kanturk supermarket two weeks ago.
The sense from his detractors was that Mr Harris was happier to stop for selfies than real engagement, which is perhaps unfair, given the sheer number of engagements he had throughout the campaign.
As the exit polls came in on Friday, Fine Gaelers breathed a sigh of relief. A late opinion poll slide had been arrested and vote share retained.
But as the party enters government formation talks, it will think one or two or three additional seats would have made its hand a lot stronger. Those seats were there to be won for Fine Gael, but were left behind.