Adrian Kavanagh, 30th February 2011

With a significant number of retiring TDs at this general election, added further to be significant seat loss numbers amongst Fianna Fail and Green Party incumbents (in addition to the losses by three Fine Gael incumbents), there was ample scope for the election of new members of Dail Eireann at this general election. But how many of these will have prior experience of electoral office.

44 of the 127 outgoing TDs, who did contest the election, lost their seats in this election, leaving 83 of these candidates to hold their seats and thus comprising exactly half of the membership of the next Dail – this amounts to a 65.4% success rate for incumbents in this election. TD candidates were least successful in the (Rest of) Leinster region, where only 57.6% of TD candidates won seats, and most successful in the Connacht-Ulster region (78.9%). 14 of the 25 Senators (56.0% success rate) candidates won seats, while both of the two MEP candidates (100.0% success rate!) won seats. 55 of the 145 (37.9% success rate) county/city councillor candidates were successful in this election – with  43.2% success rate for those in the Dublin region – and 2 of the 14 (14.3%) town councillor candidates were successful. 4 of the 14 candidates who previously held other electoral offices (e.g. former TDs, MEPs, MPs, councillors) were successful in this election, while there was a 2.6% success rate (only 6 of the 231 candidates) for those candidates who did not previously hold electoral office.  

The following tables gives details on successful candidates by electoral office by constituency: