“It wasn’t our day”. Mary Lou McDonald says SF hasn’t had the outcome it hoped for in the local and European elections, but she will continue on as leader. Said some voters angry with the Government have gone for independents and other parties. pic.twitter.com/MiDjlHZCNC

— Eimer McAuley (@eimer_mcauley) June 9, 2024

SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has said the party “has a job to do” after it is shaping up to have a poor showing in the local elections.

Speaking to reporters at the RDS Count Centre this afternoon, McDonald said she was “disappointed” that more councillors had not been elected. Though she said the party had made “some gains” on their disastrous 2019 showing.

“Obviously we are disappointed that we didn’t manage to get more [councillors] elected,” McDonald said.

We have made some gains. They are modest but they are there. It hasn’t been our day. Clearly frustrations, anger indeed, with government policy on this occasion has translated into votes for Independents and others. 

Independents have had a very strong showing this election, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have also remained strong, with the Greens holding steady in many areas.

As things stand, SF has just 14 councillors elected out of the 285 or so that have taken seats. There is still a lot more seats to be filled, but it’s clear the party did not have a good day at the polls.

McDonald said that now the party would “take time to reflect”.

“We’ve literally been on thousands, probably tens of thousands of doorsteps over the last number of weeks.

We’ve listened very carefully to people. We now need to go and reflect on that, we need to learn from it. We will regroup. I am sorry that we didn’t do better. I know that we can do better and I’m determined that we will.

Opinion polls over the last few months have shown a steady decline in support for the party, as it found itself unable to mount a coherent position on immigration.

The party had a low base to build on after a pretty poor showing in 2019, so while early indications point to the party gaining seats, it looks to be nowhere near the gains they have been hoping for.

After the 2020 general election, one of the key talking points surrounding Sinn Féin was that the party did not run enough candidates to fully benefit from the huge surge in popularity they experienced. 

Now, however, the party has fielded too many candidates, and split the vote in a number of areas. 

With reporting from Jane Matthews and Eimer McAuley at the RDS