How do Borough and Town Councillors bases match up with new local election constituencies?

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 24 June 2013

The previous series of posts have looked at how the homes bases of sitting County and City match up against the new local election constituency boundaries, with this analysis finding that there are some local electoral areas in which the current number of incumbents resident in these  outnumber the number of seats being allocated to these areas at the 2014 local elections, and often to quite notable degrees. But these analyses did not look at the other group of existing local representatives, namely the Borough and Town Councillor grouping which will be abolished at the next local elections. Town Councillor numbers are especially high in some counties and in relation to some specific local electoral areas and this could make for some highly intense competition for party nominations and seats in these areas should outgoing Town Councillors seek to remain in politics. Continue reading →

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Matching Sitting Councillors to New Local Election Constituencies: the Munster counties

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 18th June 2013

There currently are 268 councillors in the ten local authorities (which will be reduced to seven after the 2014 local elections) located within the Munster region. The number of County Councillors in some of these cities and counties will increase at the next local elections but numbers in most counties in the Munster region will fall to a notable degree. There will even be stark differences within the county of Cork in this regard, with areas in the Cork City hinterland gaining seats while areas in the west of the county will be losing seats.  Continue reading →

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Matching Sitting Councillors to New Local Election Constituencies: Connacht-Ulster

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 18th June 2013

There currently are 223 councillors in the nine local authorities located within the Connacht-Ulster region. The number of County Councillors in some of these local authorities will increase at the next local elections but numbers in most counties in Connacht and Ulster will fall to a notable degree. Continue reading →

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Matching Sitting Councillors to New Local Election Constituencies: the Leinster region

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 14th June 2013

There currently are 262 councillors in the eleven local authorities located within the Leinster region. The number of CountyCouncillors in some of these counties will increase at the next local elections but numbers in other Leinster counties are posed to drop by a very notable degree. Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Gender, Leinster, local elections, Local Elections 2014 | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Matching Sitting Councillors to New Local Election Constituencies: Dublin

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 14th June 2013 (with updates added in light of co-options, retirements and other changes to personnel here.)

The previous post offered a general overview of the 130 sitting councillors in the Dublin region, but this post will look at these in greater detail and attempt to match these councillors to the local electoral areas that they would seem most likely to be contesting in next year’s local elections. As stated in the previous post, the Dublin local authorities have all been awarded extra seats in the latest boundary revisions. But the nature of the boundary changes does determine that there are going to be some constituencies that are likely to be highly competitive due to the number of incumbents that are likely to be contesting these in 2014. Other areas could well offer good prospects for potential candidates in terms of a more limited level of competition from experienced incumbents (though, presumably, not from other candidates). Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Dublin, Gender, local elections | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Councillor Numbers in Dublin; Parties, Co-options and Gender

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 13 June 2013

There currently are 130 councillors in the four different local authorities covering the Dublin region, with Dublin City (52 councillors) being the largest of these followed by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (28), South Dublin (26) and Fingal (24). The number of councillors in this region will increase significantly at the next local elections, with the number of councillors increasing by 16 in Fingal (a 67% increase), 14 in South Dublin (54%), 12 in Dun Laoghaire (43%) and 11 in Dublin City (21%) – see Figure 1.  This notable increase in overall councillor numbers (53) in the Dublin region does offer a “political opportunity space” here to allow different candidates and political parties to make notable gains at the 2014 local elections, although some parties will be better placed to make gains than others due to changing support trends and the tendency (as in the second-order election model) for government parties to do less well in such mid-term contests. Continue reading →

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Fianna Fail Local Area Representatives and the 2014 Local Elections

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 13th June 2013 – with updates as convention/candidate selection process proceeded (see the bottom of the post). Final update posted on 16th June 2014. 

69 members of the Fianna Fail Local Area Representatives group contested the 2014 Local Elections, with most of these contesting electoral areas in the more urban parts of the state (as detailed later in this post). Slightly more than half of these failed to win seats in these elections, with 29 Fianna Fail LARs (49.2% of these) winning seats while 30 Fianna Fail LARs (50.8%) lost out in these elections.   Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Election data, Gender, local elections, Young candidates | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Some thoughts on “Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report 2013”

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 30th May 2013

Thursday 30th May 2013 saw the publication of the Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report 2013, which outlines the constituency boundaries for next year’s local elections (May 2014).  The committee faced a very difficult task, in fairness, given that the levels of change being determined by the terms of reference would probably amount to the most dramatic redrawal of local election constituency boundaries in the history of the State. Continue reading →

Posted in Election boundaries, local elections, Local Elections 2014 | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Voter turnout levels in Dail by-elections 1994-2011

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd March 2013

Voter turnout levels in general elections in the Republic of Ireland, as in most other democracies tend to be higher than those in other types of elections, such as referendum elections, presidential elections and local elections. The same also applies in the case of Dail by-elections; as Figure 1 shows turnout levels for by-elections held during the 1990s and 2000s in the constituencies concerned are consistently lower than those for the same constituencies in the general elections held prior to those contests.

Figure 1: Voter turnout levels by constituency for all by-elections held between 1994 and 2011 and turnout levels for the general elections preceding these

Figure 1: Voter turnout levels by constituency for all by-elections held between 1994 and 2011 and turnout levels for the general elections preceding these

Turnout levels across the nineteen by-election contests held to date during the 1990s and 2000s have averaged out at 50.5%. Continue reading →

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New European Parliament constituency boundary revision?

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 12th/13th March 2013

With Croatia about to become the newest member of the European Union in the coming months and with this state likely to be assigned 11/12 seats in the next European Parliament, theEuropean Union has voted to reapportion European Parliament seats between its different member states to take account of this and the Republic of Ireland is to lose one of its 12 seats in the European parliament. A new boundary review will need to be carried out to redraw the European election constituency boundaries in line with this ahead of next year’s European elections. But what shape might these new boundaries take?

Continue reading →

Posted in Constituency Commission, Election boundaries | 6 Comments