Adrian Kavanagh, 4th June 2024

This post will attempt to list all of the “New Irish”, or Non-Irish/UK national, candidates who have been officially selected to contest the local elections on 7 June (2024), or else have declared their intentions to contest these elections as independent candidates. For the purposes of this post, the definition of “New Irish” includes people who were born outside Ireland and who were not Irish (or UK) citizens before moving to the Republic Ireland. This post will include candidates who subsequently gained Irish citizenship on moving to, or after moving to, the Republic of Ireland, as is the case for a number of the candidates listed here.

At present (as of 5th June 2024) I can account for eighty eight candidates in this group (4.1% of the total number of selected/declared local election candidates), including forty seven female candidates (53.4%) and forty one males (46.6%) candidates; this amounts to 6.9% of all female local election candidates and 2.8% of all male local election candidates. (There are probably another five or six candidates who I suspect could be included here, but I haven’t been able to attain sufficient biographical details on these candidates to be able definitively include them.)

In terms of political parties/groupings, out of the candidates listed below:

• 12 are Fine Gael candidates – amounting to 3.5% of their (Fine Gael’s) total number of selected candidates
• 10 are Green Party candidates – amounting to 7.8% of their total number of selected candidates
• 9 are Labour Party candidates – amounting to 8.3% of their total number of selected candidates
• 9 are Fianna Fáil candidates – amounting to 2.5% of their total number of selected candidates
• 4 are Aontú candidates – amounting to 6.1% of their total number of selected candidates
• 4 are Sinn Féin candidates – amounting to 1.2% of their total number of selected candidates
• 3 are Social Democrat candidates – amounting to 4.2% of their total number of selected candidates
• 2 are People Before Profit candidates – amounting to 4.4% of their total number of selected candidates
• 1 is a Right To Change candidate – amounting to 50.0% of their total number of selected candidates
• 1 is a Party for Animal Welfare candidate – amounting to 20.0% of their total number of selected candidates
• 33 are Independent/Non-Party candidates – amounting to 6.5% of all declared non-party candidates

Ten members of this group are currently sitting County Councillors or City Councillors, while one other member (Carol Okeke) spent the final months of the outgoing Council’s term of office as a temporary replacement for a Councillor from her political party.

Non-Irish nationals currently account for 12.3% of the Irish population based on the most recent Census of 2016, with this percentage falling to 10.7% when UK nationals are taken out of this group. If the proportion of successful non-Irish/UK nationals local election candidates at at the June 7th local elections was similar to this level (i.e. 10.7%), there would be 102 “New Irish” Councillors (based on a total number of 949 City and County Council members).

At the 2019 City and County Council elections, I estimate that 53 New Irish candidates contested these elections, with seven running for the Green Party, six running for Fine Gael, five running for Fianna Fáil, four running for Labour, three running for People Before Profit, two running for the Social Democrats and one running for Renua, while the other twenty five candidates contested the elections as independent candidates. Eight of these fifty three candidates were successful (accounting for 0.8% of all successful candidates) – Sophie Nicoullaud for the Green Party in Ballyfermot-Drimnagh, Kazi Ahmed for Fine Gael in Glencullen-Sandyford, Punam Rane for Fine Gael in Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart, Madeleine Johansson for People Before Profit in Palmerstown-Fonthill, Baby Pereppadan for Fine Gael in Tallaght South, Elena Secas for Labour in Limerick City East, Abul Kalam Azad Talukder for Fianna Fáil in Limerick City West, and Yemi Adenuga for Fine Gael in Navan. At the 2014 City and County Council elections, I estimate that 31 New Irish candidates contested these elections, with two running for Fine Gael, two running for Labour, one running for Sinn Féin, three running for the Green Party and two running for the People Before Profit Alliance, while the other twenty one candidates contested the elections as independent candidates. Two of these thirty one candidates were successful – Elena Secas for Labour in Limerick City East and Edmond Lukusa for Sinn Féin in Mulhuddart. At the 2009 City and County Council elections, I estimate that 19 New Irish candidates contested these elections, with three running for Fianna Fail, two running for Fine Gael, one running for Labour and three running for the Green Party, while the other ten contested the elections as independent candidates. One of these nineteen candidates was successful – Rotimi Adebari in Portlaoise, who had previously won a Town Council in 2004.

The list of “New Irish” candidates for the 2024 City and County Council elections is presented below. This list will be updated, as and when new candidate information is received by me.

I do my best to ensure that the candidate lists on this website are fully accurate, but there can be errors and omissions (especially in the case of local election candidates, given the large number of people involved – usually over two thousand – and the difficulty in attaining information for some areas/parties).

If there are any candidates who should be included on this list (or are included here, but should not be) or if any other errors in relation to this list are noted, please bring these to my attention by emailing me at adrian.p.kavanagh@mu.ie.