Ireland European Parliament election Friday 7 June 2024

For the 2020 general election, click here.

Elections for the European Parliament took place across the EU in early June 2024; Ireland voted on Friday 7 June. The Republic of Ireland elected 14 MEPs (up from 13 MEPs in 2004, 12 in 2009, 11 in 2014 and 13 in 2019). These 14 seats, it was decided, were to be elected from three constituencies. The South constituency consisting of 10 counties (the same as the South constituency in 2019, apart from the loss of two midlands counties, Laois and Offaly), would return 5 MEPs (as in 2019); the Midlands–North-West constituency consisting of 15 counties (the same as the Midlands–North-West constituency in 2014, but with the addition of Laois and Offaly), would also elect 5 MEPs (up from 4 in 2019); and Dublin, again as in 2019, would elect 4 MEPs. As at all previous EP elections in Ireland, the MEPs were elected by PR-STV (see example of ballot paper).

Of the 13 incumbent MEPs, three, all Fine Gael MEPs, did not contest the elections. These were Deirdre Clune (South, first elected 2014); Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin, first elected 2019); Colm Markey (Midlands–North-West, became an MEP in November 2020 replacing Mairéad McGuinness after her elevation to the European Commission).

The other ten incumbent MEPs stood again. In Dublin Barry Andrews (FF, first elected 2019), Ciaran Cuffe (Green, first elected 2019), Clare Daly (Independents 4 Change, first elected 2019). In Midlands–North-West Luke Ming Flanagan (Ind, first elected 2014), Chris McManus (SF, became an MEP in March 2020 replacing Matt Carthy after the latter's election as a TD at the 2020 general election) and Maria Walsh (FG, first elected 2019). In South Billy Kelleher (FF, first elected 2019), Seán Kelly (FG, first elected 2009), Grace O'Sullivan (Green, first elected 2019), Mick Wallace (Independents 4 Change, first elected 2019).

Of the 13 outgoing MEPs, eight (62 per cent) were male and five (38 per cent) female.

They were joined on the ballot paper by six incumbent TDs: Brian Cowen (MNW) for Fianna Fáil, Kathleen Funchion (South) for Sinn Féin. Michael McNamara (South) as an independent, Aodhán Ó Riordáin (Dublin) for Labour, Bríd Smith (Dublin) for PBP–Solidarity, and Peadar Toibín (MNW) for Aontú. Four senators also stood: Niall Blaney (MNW) and Lisa Chambers (MNW) for Fianna Fáil, Regina Doherty (Dublin) for Fine Gael, and Paul Gavan (South) for Sinn Féin.

Access to the ballot is not difficult. Candidates need either (a) to be nominated by a registered political party, or (b) to be nominated by 60 electors from the relevant constituency, or (c) to lodge a deposit of €1,800. Those who lodge a deposit forfeit this unless their votes at any stage of the count reach a quarter of the Droop quota in their constituency. In 2024 there were 73 candidates across the three constituencies, 49 male and 24 female. This is the highest number of candidates ever, the previous highest being 59 in 2019. On that occasion too there were 24 female candidates; the growth in candidate numbers in 2024 is due to an increase, especially among independents and minor parties, in the number of male candidates, from 35 in 2019 to 49 in 2024. Details below:

Electoral system: is it legal?

Ireland's MEPs are elected by PR-STV (proportional representation by the single transferable vote) from three small-magnitude constituencies, two each returning 5 MEPs and the other just 4. Inevitably, this produces high levels of disproportionality; not because of the use of PR-STV but because of the small district magnitude (number of seats per constituency), which is only 4.67, atypically small for a PR system. And whereas at a general election parties are likely to be over-represented in some constituencies and under-represented in others, with a reasonable prospect that the anomalies will more or less even themselves out to some degree across the 40 or so constituencies, that's much less likely to happen when there are just 3 constituencies.

EU law requires all countries to use a method of proportional representation to elect their MEPs. That's not just a matter of choosing a PR formula; it also entails requirements regarding district magnitude. After all, if an impeccably genuine PR formula, such as the Sainte-Laguë method, were applied in constituencies returning only 2 MEPs or even just 1 MEP, the outcome would very probably be far from proportional overall even though within each small-magnitude constituency the most proportional outcome would have been delivered. In Ireland's case, PR-STV delivers 'fair' outcomes within each of the three constituencies, but the overall outcome is far from 'fair'.

See further discussion below in the Results section.

Issues

As at European Parliament elections across the EU, it could not be said that candidates or parties attempted to galvanise the electorate by taking stances on issues relating specifically to the EU. The issues that dominate domestic politics tend to dominate EP elections as well. In Ireland, these are currently housing, cost of living, and (a recent arrival on the political agenda) immigration, with issues around neutrality probably looming slightly larger at EP elections than they would at a general election. The current FG–FF–Green coalition government had been in office for over four years and, as always, some voters treated the EP election as a kind of referendum on the government's performance. At grass roots level the party organisations put at least as much effort into the local elections being held on the same day as into the EP election.

Turnout

This oscillated during the period 1979–99, unlike the pattern of steady decline in many other early-joining EU member states and of consistent very low turnout seen in several of the more recent members, after which it remained fairly steady at between 50 and 60 per cent for three elections before falling below 50 per cent in 2019. The reason for this level of turnout, relatively high by the standards of EP elections, is not any especial interest in the European Parliament in Ireland but, rather, the adoption of an electoral cycle that since 1999 has seen local and EP elections take place on the same day. Indeed, only the 1994 election, which saw the lowest EP election turnout ever, was a completely stand-alone contest. The figures (valid votes as a percentage of total electorate) are:

Support patterns

In 1980 Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt branded EP elections 'second-order' elections. General elections, it was argued, were 'first-order' contests that voters took seriously because they realised that government formation was at stake. At second-order elections less was at stake, so voters took these elections less seriously and followed their hearts rather than their heads when choosing, the consequence being lower turnout and a greater vote for smaller parties than at general elections.

Irish experience has been an archetypal example. Only at the first two EP elections did both major parties reach 30 per cent of the votes, and neither party has attained that level since 1999, which is well below their general election levels of support over most of that period. At the 2024 election their combined vote was just 41 per cent.

They have been especially weak in the capital, Dublin; Fine Gael won 30.1 per cent of the votes there in 1999, but that is the only time since 1984 that either party has reached the 30 per cent level in Dublin, and in 2014 the two parties combined did not even reach that level (15 per cent for Fine Gael and 12 per cent for Fianna Fáil). Indeed, Fianna Fáil, the largest party in the country between 1932 and 2011, has not won 25 per cent of the votes in Dublin since 1989. The broadly-defined left (Labour, Sinn Féin, Green Party, People before Profit, Socialist Party, Workers Party, independent socialist) has won at least 2 seats in Dublin, out of the three at stake in 2009 and 2014 and the four at stake at all elections before and since that, at every election except 1984, when, remarkably, no left-wing candidate was elected in any of the Republic of Ireland constituencies.

Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil tend to be stronger in rural Ireland, as is the case at general elections, while left-wing parties and candidates fare better in Dublin. Changes to constituency boundaries outside Dublin, including the reduction of the number of these constituencies from three (roughly corresponding to Connacht–Ulster, Leinster outside Dublin, and Munster) between 1979 and 2009 to just two (Midlands–North-West and South) in 2014 and thereafter make it difficult to track party support over time as reliably as can be done for Dublin.

Results

Although voting took place on Friday 7th, no results were to be released until 10 pm Irish time on Sunday 9th. Those hoping for some reliable indication of the outcome at that time were sorely disappointed, though. The large number of electoral contests (EP elections, local elections, and in Limerick an election for Ireland's first directly-elected mayor) together with the lengthy ballot papers caused by the record number of candidates meant that the counting process was slow, and Ireland's MEPs were the last to be elected across the whole of the EU. It took until 10.30 pm on Monday 10th for the first count figures from the Dublin constituency to be announced, and a further 24 hours for figures from the other two constituencies. And then the transfers of votes had to take place, which took several further days. The Dublin count finally ended at 10 pm on Tuesday 11th, the South count at 9.30 pm on Thursday 13 June at 9.30 pm, and the very last of the 720 MEPs across the whole of the EU was elected in Midlands–North-West at 03:10 am on Friday 14 June.

Voting figures:

Electorate: 3,554,450. Turnout (valid vote / electorate): 49.1 per cent. Invalid votes: 54,996.

Note: figures based on complete disaggregation of Independents, with each of the 21 independent candidates treated as a separate unit.

Vote fragmentation was especially high in Dublin (Nv = 9.85), with MNW at 7.50 and South at 7.67. The overall level of vote fragmentation is the highest level witnessed at any of Ireland's EP elections. By contrast, at the first two EP elections (1979 and 1984), Nv was less than 4; at those elections Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael won over two-thirds of the votes, a level they have not attained since.

The distinction between voter behaviour at first-order elections and at second-order elections grows progressively weaker: the two main parties won only slightly fewer votes between them the 2024 EP election than they did at the previous general election (41.2 per cent compared with 43.0 per cent at the 2020 general election). The level of fragmentation of the vote, though, is higher than seen at any Irish general election.

If seats were allocated purely on the basis of total national first preference votes, and if all votes had been cast as they were on 7 June, then the allocation of the 14 seats under the Sainte-Laguë method (generally seen as the 'fairest' since it does not systematically favour either larger or smaller parties) would have been FG 3, FF 3, SF 2, Independent Ireland 1, Green Party 1, Independents 4 Change 1, Aontú 1, Labour 1, Independents 1 (Luke 'Ming' Flanagan), with a disproportionality figure (LSq) of 6.67). In practice, of course, some votes would have been cast differently, and parties or individual candidates that stood in only one or two of the three constituencies would have been able to attract support from the whole country.

Dublin: FF and FG retain existing seats fairly comfortably. Labour takes 'soft left' seat from Greens. SF takes 'somewhat harder left' seat from I4C. Lynn Boylan (SF) returns to EP after losing seat in 2019; such comebacks at EP level very unusual in Ireland, she's only the second person to achieve this, the first being Neil T. Blaney in 1989. (Proinsias De Rossa also returned to EP in 1999 after an absence, but he never actually lost his seat; having been elected in 1989, he resigned it in 1992.)

MNW: FG retains its 2 seats thanks to excellent vote management, its two candidates receiving almost identical numbers of first preferences (one had 50.8% of the party vote and the other 49.2%). FF goes from 0 seats to 1 seat; much discussion as to whether the 3-candidate strategy was a mistake. Voting strength suggests it's highly unlikely party would have won 2 seats with only 2 candidates, and selection of 3 averted, or at least minimised, internal party ructions. Independent Luke Ming Flanagan comfortably retains seat. SF loses its seat, and the constituency's additional seat is taken by Independent Ireland, which hovers somewhere on the borderline between an actual party and a loose collection of de facto independents.

South: FF gains a seat thanks partly to decent vote management even though its vote share is very marginally down. FG loses a seat due to woeful vote management, a stark contrast to its outstanding organisation of its vote in MNW; in South its leading candidate took 79.7% of the party's first preferences, and a more even division would have earned it a second seat at the expense of FF. I4C and Green Party lose a seat each, SF and independent gain a seat.

MEPs elected

* indicates incumbent.

Dublin: *Barry Andrews (FF), Lynn Boylan (SF), Regina Doherty (FG), Aodhán Ó Riordáin (Lab). Boylan was previously an MEP 2014–19; the other two are new MEPs.

Midlands–North-West: Nina Carberry (FG), Barry Cowen (FF), *Luke Ming Flanagan (Ind), Ciaran Mulooly (II), *Maria Walsh (FG). Flanagan was first elected in 2014 and Walsh in 2019; the other three are new MEPs.

South: Kathleen Funchion (SF), *Billy Kelleher (FF), *Seán Kelly (FG), Michael McNamara (Ind), Cynthia Ní Mhurchú (FF). Kelly was first elected in 2009 and Kelleher in 2019; the other three are new MEPs.

Of the 14 MEPs, eight (57 per cent) are male and six (43 per cent) female. As usual, turnover was high, with only 5 of the 14 MEPs being incumbents.

Should there be a different electoral system?

As noted above, Ireland's EP elections produce high levels of disproportionality. In 2024 the eighth largest party won a seat but the fifth, sixth and seventh largest parties did not do so despite receiving more votes. The largest two parties received 41 per cent of the votes but took 57 per cent of the seats. It's hard to see how this meets the criterion of proportionality required at EP elections across the EU. This table shows disproportionality (the discrepancy between vote shares and seat shares, as measured by the least squares index) for recent elections in Ireland and the UK.

Evidently, Ireland's EP elections consistently produce much more 'unfair' outcomes than its general elections, and they produce about the same amount of divergence between vote shares and seat shares as the UK's electoral system, which no-one would claim to be an example of proportional representation. Were any of the parties that are unrepresented following the 2024 election despite their share of the votes, such as the Green Party, Independents 4 Change, or Aontú, to take a case to the European Court seeking an order from the court directing Ireland to adopt a genuinely proportional system by the time of the 2029 elections, they would have some prospect of success, though might fear incurring unpopularity due to the widespread support in Ireland for the use of PR-STV at all levels of election.

There are two other problems with the current system. One is the profusion of candidates. The nomination requirements are minimal (60 signatures in constituencies with an electorate of a million or so, or a deposit of €1,800). There were 27 candidates in the MNW constituency and the ballot paper ran to 75 centimetres. That makes it difficult for voters to meaningfully rank more than a few candidates, perhaps from a specific part of the ballot paper. The second is that counting the votes takes several days; Ireland's last MEP was not elected until 5 days after results from most member states were announced, the last across the EU. Informal discussions about committee assignments begin almost as soon as the election is over, and Ireland's eventual MEPs cannot take part in these arrangements. A lot might have been settled by the time most of Ireland's MEPs arrive in Brussels.

Political interpretation

Fine Gael lost votes and seats at the EP election but still took 4 of the 14. At the local elections it sustained very minor losses in both votes (it received 23 per cent) and seats (it dropped from 255 to 245 out of the total of 949); these gains were on a modest scale and from a low base, but the party was reasonably satisfied with its results given that governments tend to lose votes in mid-term (or in this case late-term) elections.

Fianna Fáil made gains at the EP election, finishing only narrowly behind Fine Gael in terms of votes and doubling its seat total from 2 to 4. At the local level it just maintained its position as the largest party in seats, winning 248, while a minor loss of votes meant it finished 0.1 per cent behind Fine Gael, on 22.9 per cent. It too regards the result as satisfactory by current standards, though its support levels in the 2020s are around half of what they were prior to 2008.

Sinn Féin, in contrast, was disappointed with the outcome. Its EP vote was slightly down and it lost its seat in MNW, but this was outweighed by a gain in each of the other two constituencies. At the local elections it made minor gains in both votes (it received 12 per cent, up from 9 per cent in 2019) and seats (up from 81 to 102), but since its support in opinion polls had been as high as 37 per cent earlier in the electoral cycle it had hoped for and expected much better. As after the 2019 local and EP elections, a period of reflection and self-examination lies ahead.

Green Party: the party fared poorly at both levels. At the EP elections its vote halved and it lost both its seats. At local level too, it lost about half of its 2019 votes and its seats fell from 49 to 23.

Aontú: the party outpolled Labour at the EP elections without taking a seat, but in the local elections it won only 8 of the 949 seats.

Labour's performance at both levels was modest, but its morale was greatly boosted by winning an EP seat in Dublin for its first EP success since 2009. At the local elections its vote dropped further to 5 per cent, believed to be its lowest level ever, and it lost 1 seat, finishing with 56.

Social Democrats: improved their vote at the EP election without coming anywhere near to winning a seat. At local level they were some way behind Labour in terms of both votes and seats (they took 35), though this was well up on the 19 they won in 2019.

People Before Profit–Solidarity, which had won an EP seat in Dublin in 2009, performed poorly in the EP election. At local level it largely repeated its 2019 performance, taking 13 seats (up from 11 in 2019).

Other parties fared very poorly. None made any impact at the EP elections; in the local elections, one won 3 seats and five others each won 1 seat.

Independents usually fare well in Irish elections at all levels and these elections proved no exception, with independents winning 2 EP seats, while a third was elected for a loosely-organised party called 'Independent Ireland'. Independents took 186 of the 949 local government seats.

Previous EP elections in Ireland

Pages on 2019 election, 2014 election and 2009 election.

 

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Last updated 17 June, 2024 11:38 AM