Adrian Kavanagh, 1st June 2011
Swing (%) required for a Fine Gael gain by constituency
Following on the previous posts, which looked at marginal constituencies that could be targets for Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein gains at the next general election, I will now progress from the main opposition parties to carry out a similar analysis of the government parties’ prospects. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 31st May 2011
Swing (%) required for Sinn Fein seat gain by constituency
Sinn Fein emerged from General Election 2011 with the strongest ever performance in a Dail general election in the party’s history, or at least since the early 1920s, winning 10% of the vote and 14 seats in Dail Eireann. But what scope has the party got to make further gains in the next general election? Continue reading
Swing (%) required by Fianna Fail to gain a seat by constituency
Fianna Fail’s poor election performance has lead some commentators to speculate that the party may be out of power for a considerable period of time, but a study of individual constituency results suggests that significant seat gains may be made by the party at the next general election on a swing to the party of just a few percentage points. Continue reading
By Claire McGing, John and Pat Hume scholar and Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholar, Dept of Geography, NUI Maynooth
Research suggests that the larger the constituency size (often called the ‘district magnitude’), the better the opportunity structure for aspiring women candidates. This is often linked to ‘party magnitude’ – the number of seats a party expects to win in a given constituency. If this is high, the selectorate may be more likely to take a risk and run women candidates alongside their (usually male) incumbents. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 17 May 2011
One of the main aims set down for the Constituency Commission is for the committee to avoid, if practicable breaching county boundaries when drawing up new/revising Dail constituency boundaries (with the exception of local authority boundaries within the Dublin region), but the more pertinent requirements of proportionality often results in the breaching of these, most recently evident in the 2007 revisions when, for instance, part of Offaly was moved into the Tipperary North constituency and part of Meath into the enlarged 5-seat Louth constituency. Recent speculation that there may be a significant reduction in the number of Dail seats by up to 20 seats may lead one to expect further breaches of county boundaries. But, based on analysis relating to 2006 Census population figures I would suggest that new election bounaries for a reduced, 146-seat, Dail could be drawn up involving relatively few breaches of county boundaries and indeed a number of the current breaches could be easily redressed. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh 3rd May 2011
Seanad Election 2011 candidates by constituency
So the final contests of the general elections of 2011 have now come to an end and we can now review the results of the Seanad Election 2011 vocational panel contests. 120 candidates contested these – 17 contesting the five-seat Cultural and Education panel, 19 constesting the seven-seat Administrative panel, 35 (!!!) constesting the nine-seat Industrial and Commerical panel, 28 constesting the eleven-seat Agricultural panel and 21 constesting the eleven-seat Labour panel. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 29th April 2011
Fine Gael 3 seats, Fianna Fail 2 seats, Labour Party 2 seats
Elected: Mark Daly FF, John Kelly LB, Diarmuid Wilson FF, Michael W D’Arcy FG, Martin Conway FG, Tom Sheahan FG, Dennis Landy LB (Inside panel candidates underlined)
Having failed to win two seats in the larger Industrial and Commercial constituency, Labour’s prospects of taking two seats here did not appear to be very strong but the party was helped significantly by polling their biggest number of votes on any of the panels in this contest (with Labour potentially gaining significantly from the Sinn Fein votes that seemed to be edge towards Fianna Fail in the Cultural and Education panel, the other panel which did not have a Sinn Fein candidate). Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 29th April 2011
Fine Gael 4 seats, Fianna Fail 3 seats, Labour Party 1 seat, Sinn Fein 1 seat
Elected: Jimmy Harte LB, Averil Power FF, Mary White FF, Marc McSharry FF, Imelda Henry FG, Paul Coghlan FG, Colm Burke FG, Catherine Noone FG, Kathryn Reilly SF (Inside panel candidates underlined)
This was another good result in terms of seat gains for Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein with both parties managing to punch above their weight (in terms of their actual share of the Seanad electorate). Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 28th April 2011
Fine Gael 5 seats, Fianna Fail 3 seats, Labour Party 2 seats, Sinn Fein 1 seat
Elected: Fidelma Healy-Eames FG, Maire Moloney LB, David Cullinane SF, Tony Mulcahy FG, Cait Keane FG, Terry Brennan FG, Daragh O’Brien FF, Terry Leyden FF, Ned O’Sullivan FF, John Whelan LB (Inside panel candidates underlined)
A much better result for Fine Gael this time, with the party managing to convert their weight of voting numbers into five seats on this panel. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 28th April 2011
Fine Gael 4 seats, Fianna Fail 4 seats, Labour Party 2 seats, Sinn Fein 1 seat
Elected: James Heffernan LB , Paddy Burke FG, Paul Bradford FG, Trevor Ó Clochartaigh SF, Brian Ó Dohmnaill FF, Pat O’Neill FG, Michael Comiskey FG, Jim Walsh FF, Pascal Mooney FF, Dennis O’Donovan FF, Susan O’Keeffe LB (Inside panel candidates underlined)
This proved to be a very good result for Fianna Fail. Depsite the fact that their share of the Seanad electorate was quivalent to just under 3 quotas, Fianna Fail managed to win four seats on this panel with the final seat coming at the expense of what would have been anticipated as being a probable fifth Fine Gael seat. Continue reading
Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses 