Adrian Kavanagh, 30th January 2014

In the lead up to, and in the immediate aftermath of, the 2011 General Election, I produced a post reviewing the poll toppers in each of the different constituencies at the 2007 General Election and their subsequent fate at the 2011 contest. This found that over half of the TDs who had topped the poll in their constituencies in 2007 subsequently were not holding seats after the 2011 contest: ten of these TDs opted to retire from politics ahead of the general election while a further twelve of these poll-topping TDs lost their seats at this contest.

Figure 1: The fates of the 2007 General Election poll toppers at the 2011 General Election.

Could a similar fate lie in store for those City or County Councillors who topped the poll in their electoral areas at the 2009 City and County Council elections? That remains to be seen. Indeed, by default due to the abolition of the Dual Mandate ahead of the 2004 elections, a number of the 2009 poll-toppers will not be eligible to contest these elections in any course. A study of the 171 current/former City and County Councillors (as listed in the table below), who topped the poll in their electoral areas at the 2009 contest, finds than an impressive number of these went on to subsequently win seats at the following general election (or indeed in a subsequent by-election (or rather one held on the same day, as in the case of Maureen O’Sullivan) : thirty one of these (18.7%) would win seats at the Dail election in 2011 while a further five (2.9%) would win seats in Seanad Eireann. Thus the 2009 poll toppers group would account for over 19 per cent of the membership of the new Dail after the February 2011 contest (and well over one-third of the new membership of this). Marking a further reduction in the numbers of the poll topper who are likely to be defending their seats in May 2014, a further fourteen (8.2%) of these have announced their intention to retire from politics at these elections (or have already done so) and this number may increase further over the coming months. All in all and at this point in time, close to thirty percent of the candidates who were poll toppers at the 2009 contest will not be defending these seat at the May 2014 elections. 

Table 1: Poll toppers by electoral area at the 2009 Local Elections. Note: Poll topper here is taken to mean the candidate who won the most first preference votes, not the candidate who was the first to be elected. 

Looking at the trends in the above table, it can be seen that no one party had an outright dominance in terms of which parties, or groupings, the 2009 poll toppers haled from. Not surprisingly, Fine Gael did account for most of these with sixty four (37.4%) of the poll toppers in 2009 being candidates of this party. Labour (33 – 19.3%), the Independents/Non Party grouping (32 – 18.7%) and Fianna Fail (29 – 17.0%) are grouped relatively closely together as the groupings/parties accounting for the next largest cohorts of poll toppers.  The relatively high number of independent/non-party candidates in this grouping is not surprising. While they cannot rely on the financial and organisational supports that party candidates enjoy, this is not as much of a drawback in local elections (or at least those up to 2009) given the smaller areas covered by local electoral areas relative to the much larger general election constituencies. Independent candidates also do not have to “share” a constituency with a running mate and hence are not limited by vote-management (e.g. constituency division or bailiwicking) in the way that party candidate on a multiple-candidate ticket would be. Sinn Fein accounted for eight (4.7%) of the poll toppers in 2009, while five (2.9%) poll toppers came from the group of left-wing parties that would form the United Left Alliance at the 2011 contest. Since the 2009 contest, five of these poll toppers have switched allegiances in terms of their party/grouping memberships.  There was a notable gender dimension here too, as 152 of the poll toppers were male (88.9%) and only 19 (11.1%) were female. The most “successful” of the poll toppers group in 2009, in terms of raw first preference votes, was Fine Gael’s Michael Creed with 4,655 votes in the Macroom electoral area (his running mate, Derry Canty, also polled very well with 4,046 votes). The next largest first preference vote won in the state in 2009 by a poll topper was Labour’s John Gilroy’s 4,538 votes haul in Blarney, followed by the 4,499 votes won by Catherine Murphy (Independent) in Celbridge. The smallest number of votes won a poll topper was the 677 votes won by PJ Reilly (Fianna Fail) in Granard, just ahead of the 691 votes won by Sean McDermott (Fine Gael) in Manorhamilton and the 747 votes won by Tom Mulhall (Fine Gael) in Emo. Of course, the raw number of first preference votes is reflective of other factors (constituency size, voter turnout levels, as well as the relative level of competition in a constituency) than popularity. Another way to compare the support levels won by the 2009 is to look at their percentage share of the vote, or their vote as a proportion of the quota in their constituency, and these figures are illustrated in the table below.

Table 2: Poll toppers by electoral area at the 2009 Local Elections in terms of their percentage share of the vote/quota. 

Measured in terms of percentage share of the vote, the most popular candidate/poll-topper in the state at the 2009 elections was independent candidate, Margaret Gormley, who won 36.5% of the first preference vote in Tobercurry. The next highest candidates in this regard were Simon Harris (Fine Gael) who won 31.8% of the Greystones first preference vote and Michael Dollard who won 31.2% of the Mullingar East first preference vote. The poll topping candidates with the lowest vote shares were Fianna Fail’s Niamh Smyth (10.0% in Bailieborough), independent candidate Francis Deane (11.6% in Navan) and Labour’s George Lawlor (11.7% in Wexford). When analysed in terms of how their first preference votes compared with the quota in their respective constituencies, the most successful of the 2009 poll toppers in this regard is shown to be Tony McLoughlin (Fine Gael), who won close to twice the quota in Sligo-Strandhill in terms of his first preference vote (1.99 quotas). The next most successful in this regard was former independent councillor, and now Labour Senator, John Kelly with 1.92 quotas in Castlerea and the aforementioned Margaret Gormley, with 1.82 quotas in Tobercurry (just ahead of Catherine Murphy on 1.81 quotas in Celbridge). At the other end of the scale, the lowest placed candidates in this regard were Tom Mulhall (Fine Gael) with 0.67 quotas in Emo and Paddy Bracken (Fianna Fail) with 0.77 quotas in Mountmellick – hey, elections in Co. Laois ARE competitive – as well as Catherine Yore with 0.77 quotas in Kells. 123 of the poll toppers succeeded in winning enough votes to exceed the quota, and hence be deemed elected, on the first count, but the other 48 poll toppers had to wait for a later count before securing their seats.