Commentary on campaign expenditure data for the 2011 Presidential Election

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 15th February 2011

The Standards in Public Office Commission made its report on donations and election expenses disclosed to it by the seven presidential election candidates on 14th February 2012. This report found that, in total, €304,570.75 in campaign donations was received by the seven candidates while they spent a total of just over €2.3 million between them based on declarations submitted to the commission, amounting to an average campaign spend of €331,225.30 per candidate. Continue reading →

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Female candidacies and success levels in 2009’s local electoral contests

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 2nd February 2012

Given the day that’s in it, many will be considering the effect of gender quotas and whether increased levels of female candidates will necessarily translate into a higher level of female representatives. I would argue that the relative success of gender quotas is likely to be predicated, and potentially limited, by constituency size considerations with female candidates less likely to make a breakthrough in smaller sized (e.g. three seat) constituencies based on previous research noted on this site by Claire McGing and yours truly. Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Election data, Gender, local elections | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Irish General Election 2011 Facts and Figures’ Golden Goose Awards 2011: The Winners

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 1 January 2012

The basis for judgement here is not simply the weight of votes won by a party or candidate, but the extent of improvement relative to a previous contest, the level of local competition from opposing parties/candidates and the impact that a candidate’s performance had on those of their constituency running mates or even on their party’s national prospects. Continue reading →

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Irish General Election 2011 Facts and Figures’ Golden Goose Awards 2011: The Nominations

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 19 December 2011

OK, for better or worse here is the list of the nominees for the Irish General Election 2011 Facts and Figures’ Golden Goose Awards. There is without doubt going to be some glaring omissions here, but what is an awards contest without a bit of controversy! Continue reading →

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Irish General Election 2011 Facts and Figures’ Golden Goose Awards 2011

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Adrian Kavanagh, 14 December 2011

There have been many electoral contests during 2011, associated with February’s general election, the Seanad elections in April and the October’s presidential elections, in addition to a by-election and two referendum elections. But which parties and candidates managed to get the golden goose who laid the golden electoral eggs in these contests? Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Seanad election | 7 Comments

How much do Irish political parties spend on promoting women?

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Claire McGing

By Claire McGing, Government of Ireland IRCHSS scholar and John and Pat Hume scholar, NUI Maynooth

In May 2011, Phil Hogan, Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, announced his intention to introduce legislation whereby political parties must ensure that 30% of their general election candidates are women and 30% are men. The proposed sanction for non-compliance is very strict: parties face losing 50% of their annual funding from the state if they fail to meet the quota requirement. The proposed legislation is due to come into affect at the next general election. Continue reading →

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Perspectives on the Dublin West constituency

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

On October 27th a by-election will take place in the Dublin West to fill the seat vacated following the death of Brian Lenihan TD. 13 candidates will be contesting this election, based on the official candidate information provided by the Dublin County returning officer. The constituency is located in its entirety within Fingal county. Dublin West is largely comprised of two different local election constituencies focusing on the Greater Blanchardstown area – the Mulhuddart electoral area and the Castleknock electoral area (although the 2008 Constituency Commission controversially opted to move the western part of Swords Town into Dublin West).  Continue reading →

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Party vote levels at by-elections, 1980-2010

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

Since January 1st 1980, twenty-four Dail by-elections have been held in the Republic of Ireland involving two hundred candidates who have won a combined total of 816,989 votes in these. Fianna Fail has been the most successful party in terms of winning votes in these by-elections (279,516 votes, or 31.9% of the total number of votes cast in by elections, marginally ahead of Fine Gael (250,648 votes, or 28.6% of the total number of votes cast in by-elections). The candidate who has won the biggest number of first preference votes in any by-election held during this period is George Lee (27,768 votes, or 53.4% of the vote, in Laois-Offaly 1984) , followed closely former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen (26,022 votes, or 54.7% of the vote, in Laois-Offaly 1984), but the late Cathal Coughlan (Donegal South-West 1983) is the candidate to win the highest vote share in any by-election during this period. Continue reading →

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Female candidacies and support levels at by-election contests, 1982-2010

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

There has been exactly two hundred candidacies across the 23 different by-election contests that took place over the past three decades (between 1982 and 2010), although this number does take account of candidates (such as Jim Tallon who has to date contested seven different by-election contests) who contested in different by-elections on multiple occasions. There have been 37 female candidacies across these different by-election election contests, meaning that females have accounted for 18.5% of all by-election candidacies over the past three decades. In total, female candidates have won 185,615 first preference votes in these contests (22.7% of all votes cast) and won the by-election contests on seven different occasions (30% of all contests). Continue reading →

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Losing the battle but winning the war: General Election successes for by-election losers

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Adrian Kavanagh

What do Tomas MacGiolla, Dick Roche, Joe Higgins, Brian Hayes and Paul Gogarty all have in common? Continue reading →

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