This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

The Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has called a general election for 8 February, triggering a campaign that is expected to focus on his government’s record on public services, housing, Brexit and the climate crisis.

Varadkar briefed his cabinet and opposition leaders on Tuesday morning and made a public statement before travelling to Phoenix Park to ask the president, Michael D Higgins, to dissolve the 32nd Dáil. The president signed the proclamation shortly before 2pm.

Addressing the media at Government Buildings in Dublin, Varadkar said it had been a privilege to serve the country and that a short campaign would let a new government swiftly tackle urgent issues.

“I always said that the election should happen at the best time for the country. Now is that time,” he said.

He lauded the government’s record on Brexit, social equality, jobs and poverty reduction but admitted more needed to be done.

“Many people don’t feel the strength of our economy in their pockets and they don’t see it in their payslips or in their towns and parishes. We have a plan for fairer taxes – for future jobs and for rural Ireland – to put that right.”

Varadkar claimed “real headway” on climate action and the environment despite Ireland facing fines for missing carbon emission targets. “We’re no longer a laggard but we are still far from being a leader. We have much to do.”

For the first time since 1918 the election will take place on a Saturday – and coincide with a Six Nations rugby match against Wales at the Aviva stadium. Varadkar said a weekend poll would make it easier for students to vote and avert closure of schools used as polling stations.

An election had been expected. Varadkar’s Fine Gael party leads a minority administration reliant on dwindling support from independent TDs (Irish MPs) plus a nearly expired confidence and supply agreement with the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil.

Opinion polls closely match Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, both centrist parties. Neither is within range of a majority so the winner will be whichever party succeeds in forming a viable coalition with smaller parties after the election.

Varadkar and the Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, have both ruled out going into government with Sinn Féin. That leaves the Labour party, the Greens and a clutch of leftwing groups and independents as potential partners.

The Green party’s success in European and council elections last year, plus youth-led climate protests, has prompted Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to tout environmental credentials.

Q&A What are the main political parties in Ireland? Show Hide Fine Gael

Its name can be translated as family or tribe of the Irish. A centre-right party with a socially progressive tilt. In office since 2011, first led by Enda Kenny, then Leo Varadkar, with support from smaller coalition partners. Traces roots to Michael Collins and the winning side in Ireland’s 1922-23 civil war. The party traditionally advocates market economics and fiscal discipline. Appeals to the urban middle class and well-off farmers. Fianna Fáil Its name means Soldiers of Destiny. A centrist, ideologically malleable party that dominated Irish politics until it steered the Celtic Tiger economy over a cliff, prompting decade-long banishment to opposition benches. Under Micheál Martin, a nimble political veteran, it has clawed back support and may overtake Fine Gael as the biggest party and lead the next coalition government. Founded by Éamon de Valera, who backed the civil war’s losing side but turned Fianna Fáil into an election-winning machine. Sinn Féin Its name means We Ourselves, signifying Irish sovereignty. A leftwing republican party that competes in Northern Ireland as well as the Republic. Traces roots to 1905. Emerged in current form during the Troubles, when it was linked to the IRA. Peace in Northern Ireland helped Sinn Féin rebrand as a working-class advocate opposed to austerity. Under Mary Lou McDonald, a Dubliner without paramilitary baggage, Sinn Féin has become the third-biggest party, and its vote share surged in the 2020 election. Others Partnership with Fine Gael during post-Celtic Tiger austerity tainted the centre-left Labour party. The political arm of the trade union movement, it is led by Brendan Howlin, a former teacher and government minister. The Social Democrats and Solidarity-People Before Profit are part of an alphabet soup of smaller, more leftwing parties. The Greens, wiped out in 2011 after a ruinous coalition with Fianna Fáil, have campaigned on the back of climate crisis anxiety and youth-led protests. Independent TDs have prospered in recent elections, turning some into outsized players in ruling coalitions. Rory Carroll

As Ireland’s first gay prime minister and the son of an Indian immigrant, Varadkar attracted global attention when he took office in June 2017, aged just 37.

He did so not via a general election but by succeeding Enda Kenny, who stepped down as taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael after winning elections in 2011 and 2016.

Varadkar earned widespread praise in Ireland for rallying European Union support behind the backstop, a mechanism to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, during Brexit negotiations with the UK. His meeting with Boris Johnson in Liverpool last October paved the way to an eventual deal.

Liberals also applauded Varadkar for his role in a 2018 referendum that legalised abortion, a milestone in Ireland’s transformation from a socially conservative Catholic society to secularism and and pluralism.

Fine Gael will fight the election on its record on Brexit and the economy, which has bounced back from the Celtic Tiger crash with high growth rates, near-full employment and bountiful tax revenues swollen by tech giants.

However, the party risks voter fatigue – it has ruled for almost a decade. And it has presided over crises in housing and health.

A shortage of accommodation in Dublin and other cities and towns has sent rents rocketing, forced many people to make long commutes and others to live in shelters or on the streets.

The government has failed to tame a dysfunctional health service that swallows huge resources but produces patchy results, with record numbers of patients languishing on trolleys.

Unexpectedly huge costs for a children’s hospital and national broadband have hit the government’s claim of competent financial stewardship.

Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, said Fine Gael had failed and that it was time for a change of government.

He said: “Housing prices and housing rents are simply far too high and there is a deep, deep crisis of homelessness right across every level of housing. In health, again, we have a very serious crisis in terms of emergency departments and in terms of people waiting far too long for operations and procedures and for outpatient departments.”

Eamon Ryan, the Green party leader, said the next administration would need to chart “substantive” changes to transport, energy, agriculture and industry to meet climate targets.