Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd September 2014

Following on a similar post that was completed ahead of the 2011 General Election, this post will list all of the Dail deputies who have retired/stepped down during the lifetime of the current Dail or who have announced that they will not be contesting the next general election. This list does not include any outgoing Dail deputies, who did contest their party’s selection convention but failed to win a nomination, as with John Perry (Fine Gael) in Sligo-Leitrim.
Including Patrick Nulty, 21 of the TDs who were elected in 2011 (including the Dublin West by-election) have retired/resigned from the Dail or will be retiring at the next election/not contesting the next election, amounting to 12.7% of the Dail deputies who held seats after the 2011 Dail contests. Nineteen of the TDs in this group are male and two are female. If Patrick Nulty is excluded here, this means that 12.2% of the current group of male TDs will be stepping down at the next general election, as against 7.4% of the current group of female TDs. 7 of the retiring TDs are Labour Party TDs (and Patrick Nulty was also elected as a Labour candidate at the 2011 Dublin West by-election), 6 are Fine Gael TDs, 3 are Fianna Fail TDs and 2 are Sinn Fein TDs, while one TD in this group is/was a Socialist Party/Independent TD and one is/was an Independent Alliance TD.

Two other Dail deputies gave up their Dail seats after being elected to the European Parliament in 2014, while the confirmation of Phil Hogan as EU Commissioner in Autumn 2014 created a further vacancy in the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency.

So far, the level of TDs retiring/stepping down at the coming general election is not on a par with the level for the 2011 General Election, as discussed in greater detail here. 38 of the TDs who were elected in 2007 have retired during the lifetime of the 30th Dail or retired at the 2011 contest, amounting to 22.9% of the TDs elected at the 2007 election. 6 of the retiring TDs in 2011 were female (15.8% of the total number of retiring TDs and 27.3% of the females elected at the 2007 contest) and 32 were male (22.2% of males elected at 2007 election).

Carlow-Kilkenny: Phil Hogan FG has resigned his seat in the Dail having been confirmed as a member of the new EU Commission

Cavan-Monaghan: 

Clare: 

Cork East: Sandra McLellan

Cork North Central: 

Cork North-West: 

Cork South-Central:

Cork South-West: 

Donegal: Dinny McGinley FG

Dublin Central: 

Dublin Mid-West: Robert Dowds LAB

Dublin Fingal:

Dublin Bay North: Sean Kenny LAB

Dublin North-West:

Dublin South Central: Michael Conaghan LAB

Dublin Bay South: Ruairi Quinn LAB

Dublin South-West: Pat Rabbitte LAB, Brian Hayes gave up his seat in the Dail when he was elected to the European Parliament in May 2014

Dublin West: Patrick Nulty IND, Joe Higgins SP

Dublin Rathdown: Olivia Mitchell FG

Dun Laoghaire: Eamon Gilmore LAB

Galway East: Michael Kitt FF

Galway West: Brian Walsh FG

Kerry: Tom Fleming IND

Kildare North:

Kildare South: Jack Wall LAB

Laois:

Offaly: 

Limerick City:

Limerick County: Dan Neville FG 

Longford-Westmeath:

Louth: Seamus Kirk FF

Mayo: 

Meath-East: 

Meath-West: 

Roscommon-Galway: Frank Feighan FG Luke Ming Flanagan gave up his seat in the Dail when he was elected to the European Parliament in May 2014 

Sligo-Leitrim: Michael Colreavy SF

Tipperary:

Waterford: 

Wexford: Liam Twomey FG, John Browne FF

Wicklow: 

(Peter Fitzpatrick had announced on 17th June 2015 that he would not be contesting for a Fine Gael nomination to contest the general election in Louth. However, as subsequently reported by Mary Minihan in The Irish Times (23rd June 2015), he did not ruled out contesting the next general election under a different political banner. However, on 25th June 2015 it was announced that he had changed his mind about standing for the party.

Having not contested the Labour selection convention in Dublin South-West, it appeared that Deputy Eamonn Maloney would not be contesting the election. However, on 26th September 2015 it was announced that he would be running as an independent candidate instead.

It was reported earlier that Dinny McGinley would be stepping down at the next general election and not contesting Donegal for Fine Gael. However, it had now been reported that he will be contesting the selection convention for that constituency. On 14th September 2015, however, it was confirmed that he would not be contesting the general election.

On 4th February 2016 it was announced that Tom Fleming (Kerry) would not being contesting the election.)