Adrian Kavanagh, 26th April 2011

Fine Gael 2 seats, Fianna Fail 2 seats, Labour Party 1 seat

Elected: Deidre Clune FG, Labhras O’Murchu FF, Thomas Byrne FF, John Gilroy LB, Michael Mullins FG (Inside panel candidates underlined)

With no Sinn Fein candidate contesting this panel, the destination of the 67 votes controlled by Sinn Fein was always going to be crucial here and it seems as if these votes have favoured Fianna Fail candidates, with Fianna Fail candidates winning 12.2% more first preference votes here than their share of the Seanad 2011 electorate would entitle them to.  These extra votes woould seem to have come from Sinn Fein and also (Fianna Fail gene pool) independents. Fine Gael too have won a much higher share (6.6% higher) of the vote than what their share of the Seanad 2011 would appear to entitle them to, with these extra votes probably coming from independent politicians. Labour, who are just running John Gilroy on this panel, have by contrast won a smaller share of the vote (1.3% lower) than what would have been expected given their share of the Seanad 2011 electorate.

Fine Gael candidates won a combined number of 479 (or 479,000) first preference votes for this panel (44.9%), while Fianna Fail candidates won 385 (36.0%), Labour’s sole candidate won 157 (14.7%) and the sole independent candidate won 47 (4.4%). Victor Boyhan’s ability to win 47 votes was a significant achievement espeically when viewed in the light of success rates for other independent candidates in these vocational panel contests.

Female candidates won 32.8% of the first preference votes (350) continuing the trend of past elections wherein female candidate poll relatively well in this panel contest, although the number of elected females on this panel was down by one relative to 2007 even though Deirdre Clune became the first candidate to be elected on this panel.

This proved to be a very good panel for candidates from Muster who won 459 votes (43.0%), as again just 232 votes (21.7%) for Connacht-Ulster candidates, 204 votes (19.1%) for Leinster candidates, and 170 votes (15.9%) for Dublin candidates.