No plan to bring forward general election say Micheál Martin and Simon Coveney

GOVERNMENT parties have said they have no plans to bring forward the timetable for an election from spring 2025 despite a strong performance in the local and European elections.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have said that while their strong performances in the local elections will give them a strong base to build on going into a general election campaign, they will treat a general election as a clean sheet.

Both parties have performed well in both the city and county in the local elections and early indications in the Ireland South constituency of the European Parliament elections show that Fine Gael's Seán Kelly and Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher will be elected.

The Tánaiste and leader of Fianna Fáil Micheál Martin warned that while Fianna Fáil has performed extremely strong in the local elections, paticularly in Cork, that the party will not draw any conclusions from the local elections in respect of a general election.

Speaking at the count centre for the Ireland South constituency in the European Parliament elections at Nemo Rangers GAA Club, Mr Martin said: “You cannot draw any conclusions from the local elections in respect of the general elections. We know that from experience. I certainly will not be making that error.

“A general election is a clean sheet. You start from a different perspective and it’s a different election by far and there will be a different dynamic. So, I see European elections and local elections as different types of elections to a general election.

“The one significant dimension of a local election is that it can lead to newer candidates coming on the scene who could be contenders in respect of general election seats and that’s a positive from our perspective and we will be looking at that in terms of those who have been elected.

“So, I think it would be a mistake to draw that idea that somehow because of these results positions you in a particular way for a general election.” Mr Martin said he is not surprised by his party’s showing in the local elections, saying the party had “very strong strong people around the country in different communities”.

He said his focus now is on Fianna Fáil in terms of an evaluation of the elections and learning from mistakes.

“Someone can always learn from elections like this and strengthen your approach which will be the general election,” he said.

COVENEY PLEASED

Speaking at the count centre on Sunday, Fine Gael TD for Cork South Central Simon Coveney said the party is quite pleased with its performance and that the party now has a strong base to build on going into a general election campaign.

“A lot of people only six weeks ago were riding Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil off, saying that the government parties were going to get a kicking in the local elections, that clearly hasn’t happened and if anything, the opposition parties have,” he said.

“So, for us I think this is proof that we have quality candidates that are embedded in their community and have the trust of an electorate that have voted for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and to a certain extent the Greens too in big numbers.” Mr Coveney said, however, that local and general elections are entirely different and said that what motivates people to vote the way they do in local and general elections is very different.

“Certainly, I think we’ve got a very strong base to build from and we’ve got a lot of new faces and new names, some of whom may well turn out to be Dáil candidates in a few months time,” he said.

Mr Coveney said, however, Fine Gael is “not getting carried away” and said a general election will be a different challenge for the party.

“The general election is a new challenge, it’s a different challenge for us and even though Sinn Féin have had a pretty poor outing in comparison to their expectations in the local elections, we won’t be drawing too many conclusions in the context of a general election from that.

“We’ve got a big job to do to win the argument and the debate in the lead-in to the general election but we’ll have more councillors now than we thought we might have to do that.” While the counting of ballots process may still take days to complete nationally, strong results for government parties so far have raised questions for leaders, however, Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris has insisted he has no plans to bring forward the timetable for an election from spring 2025.

His colleague Simon Coveney told the media in Cork that the party’s position is that it wants to serve a full term, saying there is more work to be done in that time.

“We think in particular the pressures on housing will have got an improved response by the end of the year. There’s an acceleration in terms of housing delivery at the moment which I think is really worth noting so there are a lot of good things hapening in government at the moment and I think we’ll have another strong budget,” Mr Coveney said.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin has already announced an internal review after a poor performance in the elections.