Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd December 2015
Elsewhere on this site, I have compiled a list of the selected/declared candidates for the 2016 Dail elections, but this post lists the nominated candidates for the 2016 Seanad elections. (The earlier version of this post listed people who had declared an interest in contesting these elections; some of whom subsequently did not get nominations to contest the elections. The number of declared candidates for the different panels – especially the Administrative, Agriculture, Cultural and Educational, Industrial and Commercial, and Labour panels – remained at relatively low levels until the Dail elections had taken place. Ahead of the close of nominations, details on nominated candidates candidates were difficult to find, but this post did try to list as many of these as possible.) Voting for these elections will take place across late March and early April.
172 candidates are listed here. 46 (26.7%) of these are female and 126 (73.3%) of these are male. Of the candidates listed here at present, 31 (18.0%) are outgoing Senators, 57 (33.1%) are City/County Councillors and 21 (12.2%) are former TDs, including some who lost their seats at the February 2016 election but also former TDs who lost their seats at earlier general elections (or did not chose not to contest a general election, as in the case of Niall Blaney). A number of the former TDs grouping are currently City/County Councillors or Senators.
There are notable variations across the different Seanad panels/constituencies in terms of the level of female candidates contesting these, as evident in the statistics noted directly below.
- Administrative: 35.3% female, 64.7% male
- Agricultural: 20.8% female, 79.2% male
- Cultural and Educational: 36.0% female, 64.0% male
- Industrial and Commercial: 24.3% female, 75.7% male
- Labour: 17.4% female, 82.6% male
- National University of Ireland: 23.3% female, 76.7% male
- Trinity: 37.5% female, 62.5% male
In relation to the vocational panel contests, there tends to be a higher level of female candidates on the “Inside” sub-panels, as will be discussed later.
46 Fianna Fail, 43 Fine Gael, 7 Sinn Fein, 5 Labour Party and 71 Independents and Others candidates (including one Social Democrats, one Green Party and one Anti Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit candidate) and will be contesting these elections and these are listed below. (Sinn Fein has also nominated Ciaran Staunton as an independent candidate on the Industrial and Commercial panel.)
The list of candidates contesting the five vocational panel elections – Adminstrative, Agricultural, Cultural and Educational, Industrial and Commercial, Labour – are divided into two sub-panels – an Outside sub-panel and an Inside sub-panel. Candidates on the Outside sub-panels have been nominated by an official external nominating body – e.g. Conradh na Gaeilge and the National Youth Council of Ireland for the Cultural and Educational panel. Candidates on the Inside sub-panels have been nominated by their own political parties and/or a number (minimum of four) of Oireachtas members. Continue reading
Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses 