Since the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/independents government took office in January 2025, the opposition has taken the opportunity to work together and, paradoxically, reveal the major differences between them.
The opposition parties of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, Labour, People Before Profit, the Green Party and various left-wing independents have all formed a united, common front on issues such as school places for children with disabilities, the cost of living, and, most notably, last October’s presidential election.
However, the last year has also revealed a number of differences between the opposition parties on substantial issues; the likes of trans issues, fox hunting and the treatment of Ukrainian refugees have divided Sinn Féin and their prospective coalition partners.
Now the issue of carbon taxes has revealed another potential crack in the opposition ranks and raises yet another question in progressive circles – are Sinn Féin really the party to lead a left-leaning government?
For Sinn Féin, their justification is straightforward; carbon taxes should be cut as a cost-of-living measure to help struggling households, and that carbon tax is an incremental approach to tackling climate change that does not answer the underlying causes of climate change.
Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said “they (the government) are not listening to families who are worried about how they are going to fill the car or older people and elderly people whose heating oil is running out or running low, and who cannot afford the refill.”
Doherty criticised the government for not cutting the carbon tax, which is planned to increase from May 1.
The carbon tax was first introduced by the government in 2010, when the Greens were first in coalition, and has remained part of the Irish tax milieu since then.
However, Sinn Féin see the tax as something that could be going back into the pockets of households now, instead of treating it as a measure to combat the worst effects of climate change.
Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly said, “the carbon tax that is coming down the line will increase the cost of heating people’s homes; people cannot afford it as it is, and they most definitely cannot afford an increase.”
“The opposition will be united in confronting the government on this and putting forward solutions, which is exactly what we have done,” she said.
O’Reilly’s hopes that the opposition would speak as one on the issue were dashed, however.
As far as Sinn Féin’s prospective coalition partners are concerned, carbon taxes are the one ring-fenced source of funding Ireland has to protect against climate change.
Green TD and leader Roderic O’Gorman said he would not support the measure, saying “the carbon tax is the one piece of public policy that is ring-fenced to tackle that, through immediate supports for the most vulnerable, increased social protection payments and longer-term measures to support the insulation of homes through a range of targeted measures.”
“If we cut the carbon tax, that would only prolong our addiction to dirty, unpredictably priced imported fuels. People are hurting because of the Iran war. The government can take targeted steps to address that, but changing the carbon tax is not the right thing to do at this time,” the Dublin West TD said in reference to Sinn Féin’s motion.
Labour TD and climate spokesperson Ciáran Ahern has been a vocal critic of Sinn Féin’s stance on carbon tax; he acknowledged that Sinn Féin’s concerns about the carbon tax are “very real”, but he said that Labour “fundamentally believes that we must be careful not to undermine the very measures that help households reduce their energy bills permanently.”
“Labour will not attack the carbon tax; there are other ways to crack this nut,” the Dublin South-West TD said.
For the hat-trick, Social Democrats TD and environment spokesperson Jennifer Whitmore said the party had no interest in scrapping the carbon tax.
“We are not, as a party, saying we should stop the carbon tax because it is an important revenue that needs to go back into ensuring people at risk of energy poverty can be supported to deal with that. We are calling for the entirety of the carbon tax to be ringfenced and used for energy security measures, and not just the increases,” she said.
Sinn Féin are in the difficult position of attempting to appeal to voters in rural constituencies who voted for Fianna Fáil in the last general election, while also trying to appeal to urban voters who treat climate change as a serious issue.
After the 2024 general election, when the Greens lost all but 1 of their 12 Dáil seats, social media pundits were quick to declare it as a rejection of the “Green agenda”, when in truth, the Greens exclusively lost seats to Labour and the Social Democrats, parties to their left.
Green losses in Dublin Central, coastal Fingal, Dublin Bay South, Dublin South Central, and Dublin Rathdown all resulted in seat gains for Labour and the Social Democrats, with the trend also being repeated in Limerick City.
Had Sinn Féin picked up the 10 seats lost by the Greens and held onto the Dublin Bay South seat, they would have the same number of seats as Fianna Fáil.
For Sinn Féin, the decision to focus on rural voters – and the climate scepticism that comes with it – comes at a cost with urban voters.
The rural/urban divide has become a pronounced issue in rural constituencies; in Roscommon-Galway (the home constituency of this journalist), the 2024 general election saw over 12,000 candidates mark a first preference for Independent Ireland TD Michael Fitzmaurice, while 441 put down a vote for the Green candidate.
In Limerick County, where Richard O’Donoghue was elected alongside Fine Gael’s Patrick O’Donovan and Fianna Fáil’s Limerick County, the Green candidate saw just 873 voters cast a first preference for them; a clear indication of how the Green brand was treated as radioactive in rural Ireland on that particular day.
Fitzmaurice became a folk hero among local constituents in the 2010s after making a stand against a proposed European ban on cutting turf, and Independent Ireland are on track to establish itself as a change from the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael duopoly, but also wants to attract Sinn Féin voters who believe that the party has lost their way in a bid for electability.
Roscommon-Galway is the perfect constituency for an anti-establishment party to make its mark (indeed, Sinn Féin won a seat there in the 2020 wave and held onto the seat in the 2024 general election), but Sinn Féin overtures to voters in Ballinasloe and Boyle come at a cost of potentially alienating voters in Castleknock or Rathmines who do not share the same social values.
In trying to win back voters who have bolted to Independent Ireland and Aontú, it can be argued that Sinn Féin are leaving the soft left vote on the table, which is a richer electoral reward.
To parties like Labour, the Social Democrats and the Greens, who may not have the resources or necessary infrastructure on the ground to run candidates in rural Ireland, that is compensated by being able to focus on their established, strong bases in urban areas such as Dublin.
Sinn Féin, by contrast, have to walk the tightrope of appealing to voters in both Ballyhaunis and Brittas and appealing to voters who voted No in both March 2024 referendums while also trying to appeal to the civic coalition that delivered victories during the Marriage Equality and Repeal referendums.
Running a national campaign is part and parcel of running a general election campaign, and that is something that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour have nearly 100 years of experience in.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can appeal to voters in Glenties and Glencullen with ease because they have had nearly a century to figure out what their voters want; Sinn Féin are still trying to figure out if they want social progressives from the cities in the same tent as social conservatives from the countryside.
Sinn Féin, by contrast, got a TD elected in 1997 after a 40 year abscence from the Dáil, a 40-year gap that left them playing catch-up by the time they started to take electoral politics seriously again.
The party ran 37 candidates in the 2002 general election, and ran 71 candidates in 2024.
There are still teething problems with balancing the needs of socially progressive, middle-class voters in Dublin who take climate change seriously (or to put it in more blunt terms, the kind of person who voted for the Greens in 2020 but switched to Labour or the Soc Dems in 2024), but also appealing to rural voters with a social conservative streak and loathe any mention of climate change action.
During the Greens’ last stint in government, the party was characterised by social media users as making climate change an issue solely for social progressive, middle-class types, not helped by both party leaders being from Dublin Bay South and Dublin Rathdown, areas known for their affluence.
In their 2024 manifesto, Sinn Féin said that the Greens had created a system of “eco-austerity” and noted, “the causes of climate change are not shared equally, and the financing of climate action should take account of that.”
In recent weeks, however, there has been a subtle shift on the continent to reclaim the Green agenda; the Greens’ victory in Gorton and Denton, a blood red Labour area with a heavily working-class voter base, saw the British Greens win their first ever by-election.
In March’s general election in Denmark, Denmark’s GreenLeft secured its best election results since 2007 at the expense of the Social Democrats, Denmark’s answer to Labour, a party that became famous for enacting harsh, right-wing policies on immigration issues in the 2010s.
In those cases, both parties have shown that climate change action and progressive politics need not come at the expense of the working class, which has long been the Sinn Féin argument.
If European green parties can crack the working-class vote, Sinn Féin’s current balancing act stops looking like a strategy—and starts looking more like a misread.