The interventionists
What direction would a Sinn Féin-led government take the country in? Cork South Central TD and the party's spokesperson on education Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire talks to Tripe+Drisheen.
At the age of 16, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire considered joining Ógra Shinn Féin, the youth wing of Sinn Féin.
He was still in school, in Coláiste Daibhéid, a small Irish-language medium secondary school located in the middle of Cork city and, as he tells it, “himself and a buddy” were ready to join.
In the end he didn’t, on his father’s counsel - not because he was against his son’s political allegiances, but rather he had a more pragmatic, parental concern: “Do what you want,” his father told him, “but get your Leaving Cert first, and you can worry about politics after that.”
And in one reading, that’s pretty much how things have unfolded for Donnchadh.
“Nobody in the family was ever involved in politics,” Donnchadh tells me over the phone from his home in the city earlier this week. Nevertheless, politics was a staple of discussion in the Ó Laoghaire household.
“We talked about it at the dinner table and what have you, and there was a very active interest in politics,” he says. Although he inherited his interest from his parents, though, he also holds very different views from his parents.
“The attitude in the house was you can have any opinion you want once you can back it up, kind of thing. That was probably the biggest influence.”
If politics is about anything it’s about the art of persuasion, and Irish dinner table discussions (arguments) tend to be some of the most passionate (heated) around.
Why Sinn Féin?
That’s a question you could also put to the Irish electorate who voted for the pro-unification left-leaning party in unprecedented numbers in the 2020 election handing them a “stunning victory” as Aidan Scully wrote in Harvard Political Review earlier this summer:
On 8 February 2020, the republicans won more first-preference votes than any other party and tied Fianna Fáil for most seats. But Sinn Féin’s victory was deeper than that; every SF incumbent up for re-election was re-elected, and the party sat 37 out of only 42 candidates for a stunning win rate of 88%. 27 Sinn Féin candidates won their seats on the first count, a rarity in a ranked-choice system, and 25 constituencies saw a Sinn Féin candidate win the most first-preference votes.
Donnchadh was one of the 25 Sinn Féin candidates to garner the most first-preference votes in his constituency, topping the poll in Cork South Central. In 2016, Sinn Féin took the party’s first ever seat in the constituency, with Donnchadh knocking Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney into fourth and final place.
Stunning as the 2020 general election results were, Sinn Féin are still in opposition, but their rise, beginning with the 2016 election, and cemented in the election four years later may have destabilised the Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil duopoly that has governed the Irish republic for generations, with Labour, the Greens, independents and has-been political parties firmly in supporting roles.
For Donnchadh, who waited until he completed his Leaving Cert and started a law degree in UCC before joining Sinn Féin, there were two main reasons why he became a member.
“Sinn Féin just spoke to me,” he says. “There was something about the party.”
His political awareness began in the mid-’00s, while he was still in his mid teens and Ireland was still in the crescendo phase of the Celtic Tiger: “We were one of the wealthiest countries, with exceptional growth, and yet in my own community I could see that there was a lot of people that didn’t have those opportunities, didn’t have those advantages.”
Those inequalities were not abstract: people in the community he grew up in, in Togher, were living in poor housing conditions and without the same opportunities in education that he had, and his perception was that Sinn Féin was “speaking to that experience of inequality in a society that’s very rich and still is really, in a global context. It’s about how we are dividing and sharing that wealth.”
Overall, Ireland has gotten better at dividing and sharing wealth, in part due to a progressive tax rate.
While the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that incomes for all households have risen over a twenty five year period up to 2019, the odds are unfavourably stacked against young people today: those born in the 1990s and now in their early twenties are earning roughly the same weekly wage as their peers born in the 1960s when they were in their early twenties.
Moreover, as the same report recognises, homeownership has collapsed for young people in Ireland and they are thus exposed to rapidly rising rents.
Like anyone growing up in the Republic, Donnchadh also had one eye trained on events in Northern Ireland. During his teens the political and peacetime experiment of power sharing was taking place.
“I really admired Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams in getting the institutions going and delivering peace,” he says. “Of course, I recognise the John Humes and Albert Reynolds and those from the Irish and British government. But I felt that they were showing great leadership and great vision in delivering the institutions and delivering peace.”
A united Ireland
When it comes to the question of a united Ireland, Sinn Féin is not unlike your typical Brexit supporter: you know exactly where they stand on a key political question, or aspiration.
Sinn Féin politicians and party members are unequivocal: they want and hope for a 32 county republic.
“I believe and hope for a united Ireland, but first of all peace and stability after a thirty odd years of conflict,” Donnchadh says.
When I ask him if he thinks he’ll see a united Ireland in his lifetime, he jokes that he’s still a young man; at 32, he’s well below 48, the average age of the current Dáil members.
“It’s not going to come easy,” he says. “There’s an awful lot of work to do. But I’m hoping I’m going to live a long while and I think I’ve got between forty and sixty years to go and hopefully somewhere in that range we’ll see a united Ireland. And that’s in the longer end of the expectations. I hope I’m still relatively young when we see a united Ireland.”
He thinks that things are developing in that direction. The most recent polling showed sizeable support (42%) in Northern Ireland for a united Ireland. There is also, however, greater support (49%) for remaining in the UK.
What’s more clear is that most people - more than two thirds - think there should be a referendum about the country’s future in the UK, but as to when they think that should take place, that’s less clear.
A unification should be “equalising to the better”, Donnchadh says. “I’m of the view that it’s not just attaching the six counties, but it’s an opportunity to remake Irish democracy to create a society that is inclusive, that is dynamic, does treat all the children of the nation equally.”
Speaking of the UK, he believes that the direction the British government has taken up to and since Brexit is one of withdrawal and “small-mindedness.”
“I don’t mean that of British society, but the approach of the British government. Irish society can be potentially far more open, far more inclusive, far more dynamic.”
When I ask him about Gerry Adam’s alleged role in the disappearance and murder of Jean McConnville, the 38-year-old mother of ten who was kidnapped and killed by the IRA., he says there needs to truth and reconciliation, saying the model that South Africa adopted would be beneficial here.
Earlier this year, a Conservative peer, speaking in the House of Lords, said a conviction of the former Sinn Féin leader was impossible owing to the passage of time. Given that Adams has repeatedly denied any involvement in the death of McConnville, you wonder what, if anything, a peace and reconciliation process would uncover that isn’t already known about McConnville’s murder.
Irish and school
Donnchadh is a fluent Irish speaker. His family spoke a bit at home, and he and his sister attended an Irish language secondary school. His younger two brothers attended Gaelcholáiste Choilm in Ballincollig.
Compared to most secondary schools, Coláiste Daibhéid is small, with less than a couple of hundred students.
“It was a great atmosphere and everyone knew everyone,” Donnchadh says. He places a lot of the school’s success with Diarmuid Ó Luasa, the founder and former principal, saying that he had a “real grá (love) for education, but in the widest sense possible.”
He did it “in a quiet, non-showy way. He was very broad-minded, decent and always had an interest in every student no matter what their academic ability.”
As the party’s spokesperson on education, Donnchadh is often in the media, especially at this time of the year as students return to school, academic results are released and politicians on all sides of the aisle have something to say on education, teaching and costs.
As much as official Ireland likes to say that education in Ireland is free, it’s clearly not.
There are costs for students at all levels, including books and uniforms, the voluntary contributions that most schools ask for to make up for a shortfall in funding, and at third level there are the significant administration fees charged every year.
“What we need to do first is fill the funding gap,” Donnchadh says. “But then we need to abolish the voluntary contributions, because it’s not right that parents be expected to fork out for what’s meant to be free primary and secondary education.”
On the Leaving Cert, he says that there has been ongoing change, but the biggest change that needs to happen is to remove emphasis on the final exam, and instead have testing spread out over the duration of the senior cycle.
“You can still have your end-of-year exam, but you don’t have 90% riding on it,” is the model he favours. “You maybe have 60% or 55% riding on it, maybe even less, depending on the subject.”
“More and more we need to make sure that every subject has other opportunities for your practicals, your orals. It would all be done so to reduce the pressure.”
Another idea he thinks worth looking at is building up qualifications or points similar to what happens over a period of a few years as in the North and the UK.
“The big issues around the Leaving Cert is pressure and the scope of things that people are expected to learn, and maybe the other element is that the fact that it’s not always very flexible thinking that’s rewarded.”
From local to national politics
Relatively soon after joining Sinn Féin, he was asked in 2009 to put his name forward in the local elections for Carrigaline and Ballincollig.
“We canvassed and covered as much ground as we could,” Donnchadh recalls. Ultimately, he was unsuccessful: “It was a great experience and you learn so much through canvassing. There are so many issues that come up on the door are not necessarily the things that are talked in the media. It can be a real eye-opener.”
Donnchadh says the differences between what people are concerned about even though they might live next door to each other can be remarkable.
Plenty people use this opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity they have in meeting a local politician in real life - to vent. Otherwise, those frustrations tend to spill out on to social media.
Having failed to secure a council seat, he went to Dublin to work behind the scenes for Sinn Féin Senators, returning to Cork to stand in the local election in 2014 when he was elected as a councillor for Ballincollig and Carrigaline. Less than two years later was elected as a TD for Cork South Central.
Sinn Féin suffered a major set back at the 2019 local elections, especially here in Cork. Across the county and city the electorate voted out a raft of Sinn Féin councillors including Chris O’Leary, Eoghan Jeffers, Micheal Frick Murphy and Mick Nugent.
“It didn’t augur well,” Donnchadh says for the 2020 elections, admitting that the party were either failing to communicate their message clearly, or they weren’t organised enough on the ground.
They reorganised quickly enough, given that another general election was around the corner with by-elections before it.
In those November by-elections Sinn Féin picked up a seat when Mark Ward was elected to Dublin Mid-West. A few months later, the party went on to have their best performance ever, with 37 TDs elected to the 33rd Dail.
Speaking of the step up from local to national politics, Donnchadh says the change is significant, especially the increased media attention.
“The first few times that you’re getting up to challenge a minister or the Taoiseach, it’s daunting,” he says. “You get used to it like anything else, but it’s a big, big change.”
Show me the money
Sinn Féin has grand designs on outbuilding all the other parties on housing, freezing rents for three years and having housing declared a constitutional right. But, supporters and detractors alike want to know, how will they finance their projects?
“We have a very, very conscientious and robust process every year with our alternative budget and that always lays it out,” Donnchadh says.
The way that works, he explains, is that each party member with a portfolio has to spell out what they would do with their budget and that’s then submitted to Pearse Doherty, the party’s spokesperson for finance.
“We identify the money that’s there, and the money that’s not there and if it’s not there the decision has to be made. The money that we identify is not plucked from thin air.”
The party would scrap the local property tax (LPT), bring back the NPPR (Non Principal Private Residence) at a rate of €400, and increase tax rates for higher earners.
Speaking at a policy launch in Blackpool to tackle vacant housing earlier this summer, Donnchadh said the “second home tax” is a far more appropriate and fair way of ensuring that those who might be asset rich but cash poor are not penalised.
“The sources of revenues are there, I believe, and some of it’s about making decisions,” he says. “Politics is about priorities and for us there’s a need for greater priority in delivering public services and affordable housing than there is in tax cuts that benefit financial institutions and higher earners.”
Housing and health and interventions
Despite the diversity of issues presented on the doorstep while canvassing, two clear issues emerged as dominant in GE 2020: health and housing.
On housing, Donnchadh says that it took too long to register that there was a housing crisis: there was, he believes, a ten year period of neglect.
On a local level, he says Cork City Council were trying to get plans through to the Department of Environment to get social housing built but “for years there there was no funding available for them to build.”
“The other point is ideology. Too much emphasis is placed on the ability of the private market. There’s so much debate now about some of the big land banks and public private partnerships.
“What you really want to be doing with large banks of public land is building large amounts of housing, that’s really affordable housing.”
At one stage I ask Donnchadh if what all this adds up to is Sinn Féin government essentially being an interventionist one.
“Oh yeah definitely,” he says. “And in lots of ways.”
He goes on to speak about derelict and vacant sites around Cork city, and a policy document that his party colleague and TD Thomas Gould launched last month that focuses on Cork. Sinn Féin want to raise vacant site levy from 7 to 15% of a site's market value to prevent speculators letting the land lie idle.
Donnchadh has said on a number of occasions that Cork City Council needs to act more aggressively in bringing properties back into use.
It may be Sinn Féin’s interventionist manifesto that could get the party into power, if the under-40 vote once more comes out to vote at the next general election. Just before GE 2020, Richard Colwell, a pollster at Red C had this to say based on one of the company’s polls:
Housing has been seen to be the most important aspect among voters at this election, and among those under 45 Sinn Fein are seen to be the party that they believe has the best policies to solve the housing crisis in the next five years. Likewise, when we look at health, Sinn Féin also performs very well in this age group. We are even seeing Sinn Féin nominated as the best party among voters under 35 to manage the economy.
According to the latest figures released this year one in four TDs ae landlords, have investment properties or own farmland. Donnchadh says he doesn’t have a problem with TDs who are landlords -”people can become landlords for many reasons” - but he doesn’t think it’s healthy for our democracy that so many TDs are landlords.
2021 has been a busy year for Donnchadh and his family by any measure. There was a wedding, a birth and a libel case all over the space of less than 12 months. I bring up the libel case at the top of our conversation, but Donnchadh doesn’t want to discuss it.
The case, which was settled out of court originated from a discussion on Liveline on RTÉ following the 2020 election in which callers were invited on to speculate about a “fantasy cabinet.” The defamation case taken against by Donnchadh against RTÉ about a comment that ensued from that discussion. The case was settled for in excess of €150,000 earlier this year and the radio program has been removed from the RTÉ website.
Hurling is something Donnchadh is happy to talk about. Together with his stepson, he saw the Cork hurlers go down to Limerick, who Donnchadh acknowledges are one of the best hurling sides of all time.
“The debate now is between the Limerick team and the Killkenny team of the late 2000s, and I think that Kilkenny team would just about shade it, but only just,” he says.
However, he still thinks Cork are in a strong position, considering the talent coming through.
“Things didn’t happen for Cork on the day of the All-Ireland, but the performance against Kilkenny was brilliant," he says.
As with Cork hurling, he’s also positive about the future of Cork.
The Covid-19 crisis forced the city to act on a number of measures, from cycling to pedestrianisation. Donnchadh imagines Cork as a significant counter-balance to Dublin, and there are massive capital investment plans, especially for the Docklands area of the city. But how the city develops and who it serves is an area that must be treated with caution, he believes.
“You only get one shot at this,” he says, “and you must get it right.”