Crotty and Enniskillen
The immediate political setting was the fall of Garret FitzGerald’s Fine Gael–Labour coalition. On 20 January, Labour ministers would not support the government’s proposed budget, particularly its projected cuts in health and social welfare. The Dáil was dissolved the following day. This was the fourth general election of the 1980s, a frequency which conveyed the fragility of government in a decade defined by recession, debt and emigration.