The accelerating fall in Sinn Féin support

I would imagine that the embarrassment factor is more in play for the older voter rather than the younger.

In many cases it will be a very large pill to swallow for a traditional FF / FG voter to swing towards SF, and I would not be surprised at all if quite a few SF votes will be from folk who would not be loud and proud about how they are casting their vote.

That's fair enough then they'll piss off more and more working class people and they'll lose a lot of their base.Immigration has only been an issue in Ireland in the last 3 or 4 years nd so it's only become very obvious to people recently how pro open borders they are so they'll probably keep hemorrhaging voters if they keep it up.

People voted for them precisely because they were a nationalist party with a working class slant not because of their pro immigration policies.A Lot of their representatives ( I would say the vast majority) are only with Sinn Fein because of the above or are independents in reality who go to Sinn Fein because they pay their campaign costs

I think they will loose seats myself. Trust they had with working class communities is gone. Mary Lou a busted flush. I wouldn’t trust them on immigration any more than the greens, soc dems and FFG. I don’t consider anything Labour has to say.

FG just had to be seen as getting ‘tough’ on immigration. Straight away a bounce in the Polls. Blue Hugh will be delighted.

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I'd say MLMD needs to go as leader

SF not that sort of party. Given how far she's brought them on in the republic from where they were under her predecessor, she'll surely be given a shot at another GE

Ah the old tropes about Nigerians & Polish (apparently the only migrants from Africa and Eastern Europe at that time) still doing the rounds. Lies then and lies now.

Mary Lou accused the government of always being "lastminute.com". I couldn't vote for someone who talks like that.

It of course ignores how often Sinn Fein are themselves "late" in picking up on the zeitgeist.

I wouldn't vote SF but you're onto something here.

Ireland is an overwhelmingly middle class country, and voters don't want radical policies. Thus SF have to tack to the centre (and they will undoubtedly govern from there - I have little doubt that a SF-led coalition would enact broadly similar policies to the current one).

The problem from SF is, with the above factor in play, how do they successfully position themselves as a viable alternative without (a) scaring the crap out of middle Ireland and (b), annoying their legacy support base into voting elsewhere? Tricky balancing act.

I’m from fg background and a farmer and I can tell u one thing,farmers are sick of fg.i want to farm and to be perfectly honest am fed up of handouts or ifa looking for them.

I met Sean Kelly mep canvassing a couple of weeks ago and left him in no uncertain terms of what I thought of him and fg.

independent

How far she's brought them.

A disastrous last local and European elections.

A general election with a range of candidates which can only be described as from "colourful" to downright dangerous and comical vote management.

Unbelievably weak on covid (open the pubs but keep the schools closed).

Constant tales of her failures to adequately deal with ongoing bullying in SF.

Proven abuse of Dáil privilege.

Motions of no confidence hilariously backfiring regularly.

Her foghorn style of diplomacy.

I wouldn't have her lead a neighbourhood watch never mind a modern European country.

In terms of their Dail presence, to previously unimaginable heights. Even six months out from the last GE, the idea that SF would be emerging as effectively joint largest party with FF and FG would have been a pipe dream…

The army council must be getting nervous with the collapse in support in the 26. Wouldn’t surprise me if Mary Lou is replaced with Matt Carthy. Doherty’s endless shouting, fake outrage and finger pointing is also no longer working.

Harks back to their days of getting trained by the PLO and the Russians.