AND so, the people have spoken. From the ‘Comeback Kid’ of Noel O’Donovan making his return to politics, to new faces for the Social Democrats, who have gained two seats, but lost one, to the rise of TD Michael Collins’ new party, it’s been a busy few days.
As expected, the Ireland South count was a much longer drawn-out affair, with no great surprises at the top of the list there.
But the overall story of the election, both in West Cork and nationally, appears to be the fall-off in the Sinn Féin vote, both at European and local level – though much of this result can also be attributed to poor vote management.
The other story of the election is the continuing support for the two main government parties and the rise of women in West Cork.
Anyone observing the political debate in this country over the last few years could be left in no doubt as to what the main issues were – housing and health.
Both of those issues have been to the fore for many years, in fact, and definitely throughout the lifetime of the current government.
At local authority level, there has been much made of the poor state of local roads in recent years, and the proliferation of potholes and disintegrating surfaces.
And yet, on both the national and local issues, it’s hard to blame anyone else but the current incumbents of the seats at both national and local level. And who hold the majority of those seats? Why, the government parties, of course.
And yet the public turned out in substantial numbers to vote faith in those incumbents, despite the apparently poor job we have claimed they were doing in recent years.
It would take more than an armchair theorist to discover what is the basis of the dichotomy.
On the surface, it makes little sense.
But, then, the Irish have always been a nation of opting for ‘the devil you know’ when it comes to difficult choices.
We don’t, generally, like major change. And even when the chips are down, we prefer to go with the person we know best, rather than risk the house on a stranger.
It would appear the electorate, to a large extent, have once more followed that age-old practice of not ‘rocking the boat’ for fear of what that turbulence may bring with it.
In Europe, however, the elections for the Brussels parliament have seen another upsurge in support for the far-right anti-immigration parties.
The continent has been coping with an influx of immigrants, whether due to war, climate change or economics, and this increasing challenge for services like social welfare, health and education have meant many countries pulling up the drawbridge, as it were, and attempting to limit the numbers arriving on their shores.
While Ireland has not seen as big an influx, given our location as a small island on the outskirts of the continent, there has still been severe pressure on our infrastructure and social services in recent years.
And, despite the relatively modest but nonetheless increasing growth in anti-immigration parties and candidates, the Irish had the good sense to turn their backs on the politics of hate.
While we have a long-standing tradition of welcoming strangers, given our own longstanding history of emigration, that may not be the full story in our decision to reject the far right candidates.
It may also be that, if we are to look honestly at the causes of the pressures on hospitals, schools, GPs and social welfare payments, there can only be one conclusion: that those pressures were there long before the war in Ukraine, or the consequences of wars in Afghanistan, Syria and the Middle East.
In other words, the problems we are facing now are problems of our own making. Successive governments have failed to provide enough hospital beds, and enough staff to resource them, enough schools and enough pay to entice our teachers to stay when qualified, or to invest enough in infrastructure for future immigration trends.
And yet, despite acknowledging the issues are historical rather than knee-jerk, we still came out in our droves and gave them carte blanche to continue with their policies.
The Irish have always perplexed other nations with our ability to embrace contradiction.
There is no more stark contradiction than in the results of last weekend’s plebiscites.
The devil you know, indeed.
