Ireland will hold a general election on 29 November, the prime minister, Simon Harris, announced late on Wednesday, as polls show his centre-right party Fine Gael and coalition partner Fianna Fáil in position to win a fourth term.
The country has been on election footing for the past month after the taoiseach confirmed he preferred to hold an election this year.
“It is my intention to seek the dissolution of the Dáil [Irish parliament] on Friday, and I hope we have polling day on 29 November,” Harris told the broadcaster RTÉ, with the president to approve the date as a formality.
Harris made the announcement on the eve of a meeting of EU leaders in Budapest where Donald Trump’s election victory will be a key topic, with Ireland particularly concerned over the impact the new US president will have on the country’s heavy reliance on US tech companies for employment and corporate tax.
Harris had until the end of the government’s five-year term in March to call an election but with his chief opposition party Sinn Féin in dramatic decline in popularity, he has decided to go to the nation in just 23 days’ time.
Under the rules the minimum notice for an election is 18 days.
Although the country is suffering a chronic housing crisis and has yet to emerge from a cost-of-living crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the slide in euro-region interest rates and a budget of tax cuts and spending increases passing through parliament on Wednesday have laid the ground for an election benefiting the parties in power.
Sinn Féin’s change in fortunes has come two years after it seemed within touching distance of forming its first government in Dublin, with some in the UK likening the party’s grasp of electoral discipline to Tony Blair’s New Labour.
With Sinn Féin already the biggest party in Northern Ireland, this had led to speculation that a referendum on a united Ireland was inevitable within the next five years.
Polling at 37% two years ago, Sinn Féin easily outshone Fine Gael in popularity.
But support has collapsed over its flip-flopping policy on migration and a string of scandals over child safeguarding.
At the same time Fine Gael has been re-energised under Harris after Leo Varadkar’s decision to quit as taoiseach in April.
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An average of the most recent polls put Fine Gael on 24.5%, its main coalition partners, Fianna Fáil, on 21.5% and Sinn Féin on 18.5%, according to the Irish Polling Indicator. Sinn Féin was polling at 35% as recently as a year ago.
During the last parliamentary term, Harris’s centre-right Fine Gael shared power with Fianna Fáil, another centre-right party, and the Green party, which has also slipped in popularity.
Since taking over, the social media-savvy Harris, 38, who the media has termed the “TikTok taoiseach”, has re-energised Fine Gael and led a robust recovery in their opinion poll ratings.
But he faces challenges relating to lack of infrastructure including public transport across the country and capital, an underresourced health service and concerns over an increase in migration.
Polling suggests Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – former rivals who have between them been part of every government for a century – could reach a majority with current junior partners the Green party, or another small centre-left party. Such a coalition would probably entail few big policy shifts.