Aside from internecine squabbling, Sinn Féin has also been clobbered by the greatest challenge to all political parties and leaders: “Events, dear boy, events.” Over the weekend Brian Stanley, the controversial chair of the Public Accounts Committee which scrutinises the exchequer, announced he was stepping down because of treatment he received at the hands of a “kangaroo court”. He has vowed to stay in politics as an “Independent Republican”, while party leader Mary Lou McDonald has only said that the matter involves a “very serious allegation”.

In more recent weeks, Sinn Féin’s Achilles heel has been scandals in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. In Stormont, it emerged that two party officers had offered a reference to a former colleague who was subsequently convicted for sex offences including against a child. Meanwhile in the Irish parliament, McDonald defended the party’s decision to cover up the reasons surrounding a senator’s resignation last year. Niall Ó Donnghaile stepped down in December following allegations that he sent inappropriate text messages to a teenage boy.

Voters in the North and South are now doubting Sinn Féin’s priorities and its ability to govern. For years, the once militant organisation has tried to present an acceptable face, even meeting with investors from Silicon Valley to reassure the world of its serious and sensible economic policies. The party has sought to emit an air of pragmatism, promising not to tamper with Ireland’s low corporate tax rate. But while it has moderated its positions, the opaque and centralised structures within Sinn Féin remain — with little tolerance for dissent or recourse for complaints.

In a broader sense, all of this has thrown a spanner in the works for Ireland’s populist movement, with neither a party on the Right or Left successfully capitalising on growing economic and social anxiety. And there is no shortage of angst: two-thirds of young adults still live at home, while the population has grown by over 3% in the space of a year.

The implosion of Sinn Féin could benefit the emergent Right-wing micro-parties this year decided to unify under the National Alliance banner following a strategic failure of vote-splitting in the last election. These parties only managed to scrape 1.7% of the vote in June’s local elections, but an alliance may do better. Naturally, serious factionalism remains, with no suitable figurehead and plenty of egos vying for supremacy.

Yet the main beneficiary — at least in the short term — of Sinn Féin’s demise is not these small populist parties but the governing coalition, with Fine Gael’s approval rating surging to 27%. It’s expected that the current coalition will be comfortably re-elected should a snap election be called before the end of the year. The Irish government last year had a budgetary surplus of €24 billion off the back of skyrocketing corporate tax receipts. Some €8 billion of this was used in a giveaway budget which included tax cuts and a baby boost for new parents of €420. These sweeteners will be fresh in the minds of Irish voters as they head into the polling booth.

Last year’s Dublin riots, along with other public expressions of opposition to mass migration and growing economic disparity, have made Ireland ripe for a populist wave. For now, however, it seems the status quo will remain.

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Theo McDonald is a journalist based in Ireland.

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