Social Democrats will talk to other parties about going into government

By Cate McCurry, PA

The deputy leader of the Social Democrats said his party wants to go into government and will talk to other parties, including Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Cian O’Callaghan said he is “delighted” with his party’s performance in the General Election, with the Social Democrats set to become the fourth largest party in the Irish parliament.

He told the PA news agency that he will talk to other parties about forming a government.

Mr O’Callaghan said that a senior ministry for disability and 50,000 affordable homes a year are among their red lines if going into government.

The Social Democrats, founded in 2015, won six seats in the 2020 election with around 3% of first preference votes.

“We don’t know the final outcome of the election results yet, so we really don’t know the kind of different options that there will be,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“We certainly want to go into government. We will talk to other parties, including Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, but other parties as well, about the areas, the deal breakers that we outlined during the campaign, and to see if we can get agreement on those, because we want to see the next government implementing those proposals that we’ve been putting forward during the election campaign.”

Asked about the risks of a small party going into government, he added: “I think what matters is what a party does when it’s in government. So I do think there are challenges for smaller parties.

“They have to deliver on the areas they defined in the election campaign. If they don’t, the electorate can be quite unforgiving about that. That’s fair enough.

“If you do go into government and you want to, you certainly have a lot of work to do to prove to the electorate that you can actually deliver on the areas that you set out during the campaign.”