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
Adrian Kavanagh, 26th April 2011
Fine Gael 2 seats, Fianna Fail 2 seats, Labour Party 1 seat
Elected: Deidre Clune FG, Labhras O’Murchu FF, Thomas Byrne FF, John Gilroy LB, Michael Mullins FG (Inside panel candidates underlined)
With no Sinn Fein candidate contesting this panel, the destination of the 67 votes controlled by Sinn Fein was always going to be crucial here and it seems as if these votes have favoured Fianna Fail candidates, with Fianna Fail candidates winning 12.2% more first preference votes here than their share of the Seanad 2011 electorate would entitle them to. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 15 April 2011
Given that elected politicians (county and city councillors, TDs, Senators) for the electorate for the vocational panel elections, it is not surprising that females account for a relatively small proportion of the eligible electors for these panels. For the current contest 16.2% of the Seanad vocational panel electorate are female, increasing to 17.3% when only electors from the main political parties are considered. Does this have an impact in terms of the relative prospects of females in, first of all, getting nominated to contest the Seanad elections and, secondly, in polling well and winning seats in these contests? A study of voting, and seat, trends for the past three Seanad elections show that female electoral prospects vary, and vary quite significantly, by vocational panel. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 15 April 2011
Number of Seanad vocational panel votes per candidates by constituency, 1997-2007
With significantly higher numbers of eligible voters and candidates, as detailed in the previous two posts, it would be expected that a similar spatial pattern would be observed when looking at the number of votes that candidates from different constituencies have won in previous Seanad contests. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 15 April 2011
The last post showed that certain parts of the states and certain constituencies – mainly two-county constituencies located in mainly rural areas such as the Midlands and parts of the North-West and South-East regions – tend to be over-represented at the expense of other areas when it comes to studying the geographical composition of the Seanad (vocational panels) electorate.
As the map above shows (detailing number of Seanad vocational panels candidates per general election constituency) the geography of candidates largely mirrors that of the Seanad voters geography, with a tendency for the regions with the highest number of Seanad electors to also be the regions with the highest numbers of competing Seanad candidates, although certain constituencies are better represented here than their levels of Seanad voters would have suggested (e.g. Kerry South, Cork South Central, Dun Laoghaire, Limerick). Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh 14 April 2011
Seanad voters (vocational panel) per constituency, 2011 - sorry, map involves 2007 constituency boundaries
Voting for the vocational panels and the university panels is currently ongoing with the votes for these constituencies due to be counted in a few weeks time. Voting for these panels is not organised on a geographical basis – there are no geographical constituencies – and hence one would not expect a significant spatial basis to be uncovered for these contests; furthermore without tally figures there is no basis for to detect if voters do vote geographically – preferring candidates from their own constituency or region when it comes to casting their votes. But a study of candidate-selection, voting and seat trends for the vocational panels would suggest that there is a hidden geography at play in these contests.
Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, Thursday 10th March
This post will look at the recent ministerial appointments by constituency and by region and will consider whether Geography had an influence on these. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 10th March 2011
Tally figures are being/have been published in a number of local papers in the weeks after the 2011 General Election, but which ones? Continue reading
