SINN FÉIN is aiming to have a cumann in every parish in the country by the end of this Dáil term as part of its strategy to overtake Fianna Fáil and Labour to become one of the State’s major parties.
Party strategists have set three major targets for the second year of this Dáil in an effort to consolidate its major breakthrough in the general election in February of last year. Recent opinion polls have consistently shown it to be the country’s second most supported party.
The three targets include ensuring the party is identified as the main grouping opposing the fiscal treaty referendum; a major recruitment drive in each of the 43 constituencies; and significantly increasing its output of policy papers and positions.
While the party has increased its TDs in the 31st Dáil from four to 14, it came on the back of a relatively modest 3 per cent increase in support, from 6.9 per cent to 9.9 per cent.
The party, like others, benefited from a collapse in transfers to Fianna Fáil and strategists are concerned that the organisation needs to be stronger if it is to continue growing.
Its membership in the South has surged in the past year, albeit from a low base. As of this month, it has a total of 6,748 signed-up members, including 1,000 student members, which represents a 35 per cent increase on this time last year.
Some 690 people have joined the party since the beginning of 2012 and the party is now the largest on some third-level campuses.
“We are in the middle of a big drive in increasing membership; Although we have more people in the Dáil we need a bigger party,” said the party spokesman.
“We have a big job of work in recruiting. Our objective is a cumann in each local electoral area, in other words a Sinn Féin cumann in every parish in the country. It is achievable.”
In symbolic terms, establishing hundreds of new cumainn would challenge the traditional hegemony of Fianna Fáil, which has had a far more extensive cumann network than any other party.
The spokesman accepted some areas of the country were “patchy” in terms of organisation and support but said the role of party leader Gerry Adams would be crucial.
“Gerry Adams has a job of work to do. He is a big crowd puller and a big name. He can play a significant role in building [the party]”, he said.
Sinn Féin’s main priority during its first 12 months in the Dáil, said the spokesman, was to establish itself as the main voice of Opposition.
“We are numerically weaker than Fianna Fáil. We wanted to make up for that by performance and activity.
“It was also important not to be an opposition like Fine Gael and Labour in the last Dáil. What happened under the watch of the last government also happened under the watch of Fine Gael and Labour.
“A strong opposition between 1997 and 2011 would have helped stem the excesses,” said the spokesman.
The party believes its communications were strong since it returned with 14 TDs in 2011 and has achieved a consistency of message, which has been reflected in opinion polls.
Over the next few months, the party will address a repeated criticism by other parties and commentators that it has cynically opposed all Government policy and has not put forward its own alternative thought-through policy positions.
The spokesman said it would be putting forward new policies and draft legislation over the next 12 months. These will include a major jobs policy to be announced in May; a Bill to give small business relief from upward-only rent reviews by invoking financial emergency measures; and major policy papers on mental health and education.
The spokesman said the key focus of the party in the short term was the referendum campaign.
“That will take up a lot of time politically. On the ground we are gearing up the organisation to lead the campaign from the front.
“We want to give a coherent direction to people out there who are disillusioned with the way the European project has gone. We are not anti-Europe. We want a left republican view of a Europe of sovereign nations,” he said.
