Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses

Adrian Kavanagh, First posted 1st July 2013 with updates made as new candidate nominations announced up until close of nominations on May 3rd 2014. Any links in this post are to online announcements of candidate selections and are not specifically links to candidate webpages.

The post will focus on Fine Gael candidate selections. Fine Gael had three hundred and thirty eight City/County Councillors and two hundred and fifteen Borough/Town Councillors (thirty four of these also serving as County Councillors) in Summer 2013, meaning that the party had a total of five hundred and nineteen local elected representatives. (By May 2014, these numbers had fallen due to various defections from the party, and Fine Gael now has three hundred and thirty four City/County Councillors and two hundred and eight Borough/Town Councillors (forty five also serving as County Councillors), meaning the party now has a total of five hundred and seven local elected representatives. While Fine Gael party support levels in recent opinion polls are down somewhat on the 36% level attained at the 2011 General Election, they are not down so dramatically when compared with the level attained by Fine Gael at the 2009 Local Elections (just over 32%). However, a number of Fine Gael local authority seats would have vulnerable due to a combination of the drop in party support as measured in recent opinion polls, the overall reduction in local elected representative levels – and specifically in County Council seat numbers in some of Fine Gael’s stronger areas – and the tendency for government parties to fare poorly in mid-term/”second order” elections such as this. With the extra City/County Council seats, Fine Gael enjoyed prospects of winning roughly the same number of these in May 2014, but they were highly unlikely to match their overall (current) level of local representation (including Borough/Town Councillor numbers). A slippage in the opinion polls in recent moths however means that – barring a major change in fortunes come polling day on May 23rd – the party now looks likely to lose a number of its City and County Council seats.

For the 2014 City and County Council elections, the Fine Gael party has officially selected four hundred and sixty eight 2014 Local Elections candidates across one hundred and thirty seven electoral areas (100.0% of all 137 different electoral areas). This is effectively almost the same number of candidates as the number that ran for the party in the 2009 City and County Council elections (470).

One hundred and six (22.6%) of the Fine Gael candidates selected to date are female and three hundred and sixty two (77.4%) are male. In 2009, 385 male candidates and 85 female candidates contested the City and County Council elections for Fine Gael. Thus, te overall number of Fine Gael candidates is on a par with the number that contested the 2009 City and County Council elections, but the number of female Fine Gael candidates have increased while the number of male Fine Gael candidates have fallen.

Two hundred and fifty six (54.7%) of these candidates are sitting City or County Councillors. A further forty two are non-dual mandate Town Councillors (while nineteen other candidates are serving both on County and Town Councils) meaning that two hundred and ninety eight (63.7%) out of the selected Fine Gael councillors are currently incumbent councillors, whether they be members of City/County or/and Town/Borough Councils.

Fine Gael will contest each of the 137 electoral areas, but there is only one Fine Gael candidate contesting the Ballyfermot-Drimnagh, Tallaght South, Waterford City South and Arklow electoral areas. By contrast, there are six Fine Gael candidates contesting the electoral areas of Ennis, Ballincollig-Carrigaline, West Cork, Limerick City West, Ballina and Sligo.

The Fine Gael 2014 Local Elections candidates include:

Former councillor, John Mulholland, was selected to contest Galway City West but has subsequently decided that he will instead not be contesting the local elections. Paddy McCartan was selected to contest the Pembroke-South Dock electoral area, but withdrew from the contest in January 2014. However, he returned to the contest in March 2014. Ger Fahy had been selected to contest Limerick City East, but in January 2014 he announced that he had decided that he would instead be retiring from local politics and would not contest the local elections. Anthony (Tony) Murphy was selected to contest Balbriggan for Fine Gael at the party convention, but has opted to contest the local elections as an independent after John Paul Browne was added as a fifth Fine Gael candidate in that electoral area. Gerry Reynolds was one of three candidates selected to contest the Carrick on Shannon electoral area, but he announced on 18th February 2014 that he would not be contesting the local elections. Mark Cooney was selected to contest the Athlone (Westmeath) electoral area but announced he was withdrawing from the election in early March 2014. Mary Jackman was selected to contest the Limerick City East electoral area, but she announced in early March that she was retiring from politics and would not hence be contesting the elections. John Daly was selected to contest the Ballincollig-Carrigaline electoral area, but later withdrew from the contest. Having missed the convention for Limerick City North, Kevin Kiely was added to the candidate list for the electoral area soon after this was held but he withdrew from the election in early March. Timmy O’Connor was one of the three candidates selected at that Limerick City North convention, but he has had to withdrawn from the local elections too, as announced in March 2014. James Deegan was selected to contest the Graiguecullen-Portarlington electoral area, but subsequently decided to retire from politics and withdrew from the local elections contest in March 2014. Peter Dempsey was selected to contest the Arklow electoral area, but left Fine Gael and is now going to contest that electoral area as an independent candidate. Joe Leonard was selected to contest the Sligo electoral area, but withdrew from the contest in May 2014. Niamh Tuite was added to the Navan candidate list, but seems to have withdrawn ahead of the local election contest.

Gabrielle McFadden was selected to contest the Athlone electoral area, but she withdrew from the local election contest after having been selected as the party candidate for the Longford-Westmeath by-election contest.

Philip Leahy was selected to contest the Fermoy electoral area, but sadly he passed away on 4th April 2014. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

Owen Bannigan was selected to contest Ballybay-Clones, but sadly he passed away suddenly on polling day. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. The contest there has now been cancelled and will be re-run at a later date. Eugene Bannigan was selected to contest this rerun contest, along with the other previously selected candidates, Ciara McPhillips and Hugh McElvaney.

A number of candidates have been added by party headquarters after the party convention has taken place, in total amounting to seventy candidates (14.9% of the total number of Fine Gael local election candidates) – forty five male (64.3%) and twenty five female (35.7%) candidates. 

Thanks to Terry Murphy, Brid Murphy, Maurice Fitzgerald, John Paul Phelan, Laura McGonigle, Andrew Doyle, Neale Richmond, Joe Leogue, Daniel Sullivan, Kate Ruddock, Diarmaid O’Neill, Frank Gibbons, Philip Slattery, Damien English, Graham Butler, Alan Gallagher, Richard Collumb, Robert Quaile, Keith Henry, Aine Dempsey, Ian Primrose, David McLaughlin, Cormac Flynn, Jonathan Davey, Arthur Griffin, Brian Carroll, John Paul Phelan, William Lavelle, Ray McAdam, Martin Lawlor, Charlie Flanagan, Evan Murphy, Jim Daly, Leo Kavanagh, Tom Nolan, Martin Murnaghan, Sean Kyne, Stephen Spillane, Joseph Delaney,  Sarah O’Connor, Paidi Manning, William Winters, Cillian Griffey, Cathal Byrne, Martin Flood, Malcolm Byrne, Dympna Kennedy,  Aileen Browne, Paul Duggan, Jillian van Turnhout, Kevin Langan, Ciaran Cannon, Siobhan O’Dowd, Claire Gallagher, Gary Carville, Cathal Foley, William Quill, the good folks at Irish Election Literature and others for providing some of these details.