 Sinn Féin was expected to make gains, encouraged by a by-election victory in November 2010 and by opinion polls which placed it ahead of Fianna Fáil.Some other left-wing groups, including People Before Profit, Workers and Unemployed Action and the Socialist Party, contested the general election under a joint banner, the United Left Alliance.Fianna Fáil was swept from power in the worst defeat of a sitting government since the formation of the Irish state in 1922.