The Irish Labour Party is a social democratic party, founded in as part of the trade union movement, with which it maintains organisational links. It suffered a brutal defeat in that year's general election, after serving as the junior coalition party with Fine Gael. It dropped another seat on Saturday, and now holds six seats. The Green Party saw its seats increase from three to Irish election: Who will be the next taoiseach? Profile of Irish political parties. Image source, Oireachtas.
Fine Gael. Image source, Reuters. Profile: Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar. Image source, PA Media. Brendan Howlin has led the Labour Party since , but is now to resign as leader. The results of the election justified the tag 'earthquake election'. Nominations of candidates closed at noon on Wednesday 9 February. The number of candidates, at , was a record see 'Candidates' and 'Records' sections below. These TDs were returned from 17 3-seat constituencies, 16 4-seat constituencies, and 10 5-seat constituencies.
Once voting finished, the ballot boxes were sealed and were then brought overnight to a central counting point within each constituency. The raw figures are:. However, these classify Kevin McCaughey, a candidate in Cork South-West who received first preferences, as an Independent, whereas all other sources classify him as a Green Party candidate, he was listed on the Notice of Poll as a Green Party candidate, and he is included on the Green Party website as a Green Party candidate, so he is treated in the table above as a Green Party candidate;.
New Vision was not a party, let alone a registered party, describing itself as 'an association of independent candidates, working together to change the way we 'do' politics in Ireland'. Together they won 25, votes, and one of these candidates was elected. This candidate, Luke 'Ming' Flanagan in Roscommon—South Leitrim, was and is in practice regarded as an independent rather than as in any sense a representative of New Vision;.
Electorate: 3,, Invalid votes 22, Note: figures based on complete disaggregation of Others, with each of the independent candidates and 14 independent TDs treated as a separate unit. There was an increase in the number of female TDs, though only a small one: from 22 in to 25 in With only For discussion of women and politics, see the CAWP site. Incumbents fared better pro rata than non-incumbents, but, unusually, a majority of those elected were not incumbents:.
Running commentary on the election campaign, as well as on other subjects, can be found at the Political Reform site. Elections are organised by the Department of the Environment, but from its elections web page which is difficult to find in the first place one would hardly know that an election is taking place. Noel Whelan's up-to-the-minute book The Tallyman's Campaign Handbook: Election Dublin: Liberties Press , launched on 15 February, has in-depth information on the candidates in every constituency and much more besides.
It will first elect its Ceann Comhairle, and will then elect a Taoiseach, the 13th prime minister of the independent Irish state. These TDs are returned from 17 3-seat constituencies, 16 4-seat constituencies, and 10 5-seat constituencies. Once voting finishes, the ballot boxes are sealed and will then be brought overnight to a central counting point within each constituency. Checking and counting of the votes will begin at around 9 am on Saturday 26 February.
Because the counting of votes under PR-STV is a multi-stage process, the final results of the election are unlikely to be known until the evening, or even late on the night, of Sunday 27 February, though most constituencies will complete their counting on Saturday 26th.
The fact that there are almost more candidates in than there were in may mean that counting the votes takes longer than it did then. It may be clear by Saturday evening that the only possible government is a Fine Gael—Labour coalition. Alternatively, if Fine Gael comes within striking distance of an overall majority, giving a 'cliffhanger' dimension to proceedings, then the result may not emerge until late on Sunday 27th.
When the Greens withdrew from the government in January the end was near. Not surprisingly, the country's economic difficulties constitute far and away the most important issue according to respondents to opinion polls, and the second biggest issue cited, unemployment, could be seen as essentially a consequence of the main issue. There is general agreement that, morally, bond-holders and banks that lent to the Irish banks money that those Irish banks in turn lent recklessly to property speculators should have to accept the consequences of their unwise investments, and that the Irish people should not have to 'repay' loans that they did not take on and knew nothing about, but there is uncertainty as to what can be done.
The main opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, argue that the terms of the loan are unacceptable and that in government they will renegotiate these terms, insisting on a better deal for Ireland. Funds to bridge the gap between government and expenditure could come either from taxing the wealthy, they say, or from the bond markets which, noting that Ireland is now debt-free having repudiated its current debt , will be willing to lend it money at reasonable interest rates.
The other parties regard these scenarios as well into the realms of fantasy, asking who would lend more money to a country with a record of debt repudiation, but, given the widespread feeling in Ireland that the ECB and EU have been motivated much more by a desire to protect the euro and the interests of banks in some major Eurozone countries than to assist Ireland, the expectation is that the parties and groups advocating this rejectionist approach will receive a significant protest vote.
Political reform is also being discussed by all of the parties, and a group of researchers have 'scored' all the parties' proposals in this area, constructing an index based on a number of criteria concerning local government, public sector, open government, electoral, and Oireachtas; details here.
Visiting journalists sometimes express disappointment at the tone of the election. Given Ireland's current economic difficulties, plus the huge drop in support for the political party that has been dominant ever since , many see this as the most important election for many years, a momentous occasion for the Irish people, a moment of decision that will decide the fate of the country for many years into the future.
However, upon arriving in Ireland they sometimes find that it is not clear what the policy choices facing the electorate are, and that it seems likely that in policy terms not much will change greatly whatever the election outcome; that many voters already seem bored with the campaign; and that commentators have pronounced this one of the most lacklustre campaigns ever admittedly, this is said about pretty much every campaign.
In a multi-party system there are a number of possible combinations of parties. Signs of a rise in support for FG have led to speculation that a continuation of this trend might yet enable the party to form a minority single-party government, perhaps with the support of 'like-minded independents', should enough of these be elected.
The 'identifiability' of government options - that is to say, whether voters are confronted with clear choices or whether, as is sometimes the case in multi-party systems, the options are unknown and emerge only out of post-election negotiations - varies from country to country and from election to election.
At Ireland's election, identifiability was very low. In , in contrast, the betting market suggests that identifiability is very high and indeed that there scarcely are any real 'options'. It has dropped since then as FG has grown in support according to the polls, but is still given a probability of around 60—65 per cent.
The main 'choice' facing voters, it seems, is what the relative strengths of Fine Gael and Labour will be, which will determine how many government seats each party can claim and on whose terms policy differences between the two parties are settled. This partly accounts for what seems the tendency of both FG and Labour to direct their fire towards each other rather than towards the government; the fewer seats the other party wins at the election, the fewer positions it will be entitled to in the presumed post-election FG—Labour coalition.
The risk is that it may make the construction of a post-election programme for government more difficult, and may adversely affect the degree of trust between the parties in the next government, a factor that tends to be important for government efficacy and survival.
The fact that the composition of the next government is seemingly so certain, and hence hardly a matter that voters need agonise over when they cast their ballots, could give the election a slightly 'second-order' aspect in some voters' minds. At second order elections, such as EP or local elections, voters characteristically move away not just from the government but also from other large, 'established', parties.
If this occurs, there may be a marked increase in support for Independents in particular, and if the demand for independent candidates increases then the supply is certainly there to meet it, with around standing.
The number of candidates for the contested seats is , by some way a record. As usual, women are heavily under-represented among candidates, with over five times as many male candidates as females:. The United Left Alliance consists of the Socialist Party 8 candidates , People before Profit 9 candidates , and the Workers and Unemployed Action Group 1 candidate , as well as two other left-wing candidates.
New Vision is 'an association of independent candidates, working together to change the way we 'do' politics in Ireland'. The number of female candidates is up very marginally on , when it was 82, but given the large increase in the number of male candidates the proportion of women is even lower than in , when it was In , the average male candidate received 4, first preferences, and the average female candidate 3, first preferences.
It would be wrong, though, to infer that women candidates receive fewer first preferences than men, because female candidates tended to start with fewer political resources major party label, elective status than male candidates, and once these factors are controlled for the picture becomes more nuanced. On average, each of the candidates received 4, first preferences. In , the average number of first preference votes won by candidates was strongly related to their elective status, from 11, for cabinet ministers to 7, for non-ministerial TDs down to 1, for those with no elective status.
Fuller details can be found in How Ireland Voted Not all are standing under the same label as in This placed Ireland in joint th position at the start of February , according to the IPU's database , once the adjustments necessitated by that database's eccentric ranking system are made. He lost his seat in the general election and was re-elected in He lost out to his colleague Norma Foley for the final seat.
Cassells lost out in Meath West. Though he topped the poll for his party four years ago, he lost out on the third count. Cassells was the party spokesperson for local government and a member of the Public Accounts Committee.
He was eliminated on count 7 in the five-seater. His running mate John Paul Phelan took the third seat. Source: Leah Farrell. The Celbridge man lost out in Kildare North on the sixth count.
His running mate James Lawless took the fourth and last seat there for the party. A new TD in , he was the junior spokesperson on financial services, government and procurement. An independent TD, Healy won a seat in for Tipperary but lost it in before being re-elected in with the Workers and Unemployed Action party.
A former minister, she first won that seat in and has held onto it in every single election since. Independent Cathal Berry, who ran on a platform including restoring pay to Defence Forces personnel, took the last seat in the constituency which is home to the Curragh Camp army base. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www. Please note that TheJournal. For more information on cookies please refer to our cookies policy.
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