Not All Plain Sailing for Fine Gael

Heather Humphrey’s recent announcement brings to 18 the number of Fine Gael TDs elected in 2020 who are standing down. That’s just over 50% of the entire 2020 intake. There’s no point in pretending that this is a normal rate of turnover. It isn’t. Across all other political groupings, coincidentally, some 18 members of the current Dail have declared that they’re not running again (a number of them because they’ve been elected to the European Parliament). That’s less than 14% of the corresponding total, or about one-quarter of the Fine Gael attrition rate, and broadly similar to the experience of Fianna Fail just 5 of whose 38 TDs elected last time will not contest the coming election.

So, what explains the remarkable stream of Fine Gael retirements? I’m not sure I have a convincing answer, but it is instructive to look at the age profile of those who’ve decided not to run again. Of the 18, only 5 (Richard Bruton, Charlie Flanagan, Fergus O’Dowd, Michael Ring and David Stanton) have reached what might be regarded as normal retirement age. Of the rest, 9 are aged between 40 and 55 (7, if one excludes the special cases of Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney), the kind of age group in which people are typically looking forward to advancement in their careers, and in which one might expect politicians in particular to be motivated by the prospect of progression from the back benches to ministerial office and even to the ultimate prize of party leadership. When a large proportion of a party’s TDs in this age range are throwing in the towel, one has to wonder if it’s because, in their eyes, the prospect of progression has been extinguished.

Why might that be? Might it have something to do with the age of the party leader? Is it perhaps the case that when party leadership skips a generation, as it did when Leo Varadkar became FG leader, those who are now significantly older than the leader begin to feel that the tide has turned against them? Is it perhaps the case that when the party leader is in his thirties (as Simon Harris is), many of those who are in their forties or fifties are prompted to think that their time has passed, especially if they have experienced a loss of status, as in the case of those who were once Ministers or Ministers of State but no longer are?*

Whatever the explanation, the fact that Fine Gael will be contesting the coming election without 18 of the TDs elected in 2020 will constitute a significant headwind for the party. Incumbency and name recognition matter in politics. It will not be easy to retain all of Michael Ring’s near-15,000 votes in Mayo, Heather Humphrey’s 12,800 votes in Cavan-Monaghan, Richard Bruton’s 11,000-plus votes in Dublin Bay North, or Brendan Griffin’s 10,000-plus votes in Kerry, to name but the four most successful vote gatherers amongst the departing cohort.

More generally, it is worth noting that the 18 retiring FG TDs garnerred almost 150,000 first preferences between them in 2020, roughly one-third of the party’s total, and an average of 8,100 each. The latter figure compares with the 6,800 average secured in 2020 by the 17 FG TDs who are running again.

The talk now is that a presidential-style campaign by Simon Harris will counteract the headwinds resulting from mass retirements. Given the significant bounce in the opinion polls that Fine Gael has enjoyed since he took over at the helm, there are grounds for optimism on this score. However, a presidential-style campaign is relatively high risk because it invests heavily in the personality and performance of one person. This is all the more so when that one person has a short track record. So far Harris has impressed with his boundless energy and his appetite for media exposure – a case of the Duracell Bunny meets Tik Tok Man, if you will. A critical question is: will he continue to impress when the focus shifts to policy content as it surely must do in a general election campaign?

A final point: 50%-plus turnover (and that’s before allowing for seat losses amongst those actually contesting the election) has the potential to greatly alter character of the Fine Gael parliamentary party. For one thing it will produce a much younger age profile. It will also result in a group with a lot less experience. The departing cohort of 18 have accumulated 383 years of Dail experience between them, an average of over 21 years each. By contrast, the cohort contesting the next election have just over 200 years experience between them, an average of just 12 years each. Whether and to what extent these changes significantly alter the party’s relationship with the electorate remains to be seen.

'* Of the 18 TDs not contesting the next election, 11 are former Ministers or Ministers of State who were not re-appointed to such positions in 2020, of whom 6 (Ciaran Cannon, Michael Creed, Brendan Griffin, Paul Kehoe, Joe McHugh and John Paul Phelan) are still well short of normal retirement age.

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