The election campaign for Simon Harris, Ireland’s current Taoiseach (Prime Minister), has seen polling for his Fine Gael party collapse after a series of public gaffs went viral online.
Harris had previously been expected to finish in first place the November 29 general election, with his centre-right party, allied in the European Parliament with EPP, polling at 25 per cent earlier this year.
The party leader has since blown this lead, with Fine Gael having dropped six percentage points due to several missteps made by Harris on the campaign trail.
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris was approached during a canvass this evening by a woman who says she is a carer, and who said she believes the Government has "done nothing for us" | follow live: https://t.co/eUoCK3Qb5Y pic.twitter.com/MXiN9b60Ke
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 22, 2024
The biggest of these gaffs involved his meeting with a member of the public in Kanturk, County Cork on November 24.
Charlotte Fallon, a disability worker, questioned Harris in a local supermarket on his record supporting those with special needs. This prompted an awkward and impatient retreat by the Taoiseach.
Video of the incident filmed by state broadcaster RTÉ soon went viral.
Further scrutiny was piled on Harris in the days following the incident, with journalists accusing members of Harris’ campaign of approaching RTÉ staff and allegedly asking them to take down the clip.
Speaking during a televised debate on November 26, the Taoiseach claimed he had “no knowledge of” such an attempt by his campaign.
Polling conducted by The Irish Times on November 25 predicted that centre-right Fianna Fáil (allied in Brussels with Renew) and Sinn Féin (allied with the Left) would come first and second in the general election respectively.
Momentum appears to be building behind Sinn Féin again, a reversal of fortune for this political voice of the IRA after the party saw its polling drop by around 10 percentage points. The collapse was caused after Sinn Fein’s statements in favour of immigration alienated most of its traditional working-class voter base.
Elon Musk’s X social media platform has launched a legal case against Ireland’s media regulator over the country’s new online censorship rules. https://t.co/Dsn2r68LGH
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 19, 2024
Despite that, pollsters have predicted both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would return to government by the time the dust settled, although the shift in popularity towards the latter party may see Micheál Martin reinstalled as taoiseach, a position he last held in 2022.
Such a government appears likely to come under pressure in 2025 as a result of shifting politics in the US.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to bring US industry back onshore, a move that could threaten one of the main sources of tax revenue for the Irish exchequer due to the prevalence of big tech companies on the island. The tech companies take advantage of Ireland’s low corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent.
Harris’ own proximity to the US Democratic Party and its Kamala Harris election campaign could also be a source of friction. Earlier this year, the Taoiseach published an image of a Harris 2024 campaign baseball cap on his official LinkedIn.
Additionally, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar — Harris’ immediate predecessor — was present at the Democratic National Convention earlier this year, attending meetings with Democratic lawmakers.
His Fine Gael party has also made an enemy out of Trump ally Elon Musk, with the tech billionaire and Irish Government publicly sparring over a proposed hate-speech bill.
Harris previously mocked Musk in the media for his opposition to the bill, claiming that opposition from the Trump camp to the bill proved it was a good piece of legislation.
“Any time Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a different view to you, that’s not a bad day at the office,” Harris said.
“Funnily enough, I don’t take my political philosophy from the Trump family or from Mr Musk or his associates.”
Despite Harris’ stance, Musk has so far appeared to come out on top in the conflict, with the X owner helping to foment local opposition to the bill in the Irish upper house.
Such pressure forced the government to remove all references to hate speech from the legislation to enable it to pass, although Fine Gael officials have since vowed to try to implement a new hate-speech bill again in the coming legislative session.
Ireland’s former European People’s Party (EPP) prime minister, Leo Varadkar, is reportedly palling about with ex-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. https://t.co/45KFJ2RTuy
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 23, 2024
