Ireland election 29 November 2024

For material on Ireland's 2020 election, click here; for 2016 election, click here. For material on Ireland's 2011 election, click here. For results of the 2024 European Parliament elections in Ireland, click here; for the 2019 EP elections, here. For information on results of Irish elections 1948 to 2007, click here. For information on results of Irish elections 1922 to 1944, including the exceptional election of June 1927, click here. For arguments for and against retaining PR-STV as Ireland's electoral system click here.

How Ireland Voted 2024 (edited by Michael Gallagher, Eoin O'Malley and Theresa Reidy) is due to be published by Springer, not too long into 2025, under the Palgrave Macmillan imprint. The previous volume in the series, which goes back to 1987, is How Ireland Voted 2020. The nine books in the series so far:

Background 2024

The three-party coalition government (Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party) was formed in June 2020 and had proved very stable. Its term was due to end early in 2025 and, rather than carry on right to the end, it called the election for 29 November 2024. The electoral system, PR-STV (proportional representation by the single transferable vote), has been unchanged since the foundation of the state over a century ago. Because the constitution (unusually) specifies a linear relationship between population and parliament size, increased population meant that the size of the Dáil rose from 160 in 2020 to 174 in 2024. Of the 14 additional seats, 4 were in Dublin, 5 in the rest of Leinster, 3 in Munster and 2 in Connacht–Ulster. The number of constituencies rose from 39 to 43: Dublin Fingal, previously 5 seats, was split into Dublin Fingal East and Dublin Fingal West (each 3 seats); Laois–Offaly, previously 5 seats, was split into Laois and Offaly, both with 3 seats; Tipperary, previously 5 seats, was split into Tipperary North and Tipperary South, each 3 seats; and Wexford and Wicklow, previously 2 constituencies each with 5 seats, became 3 constituencies, namely Wexford (4 seats), Wicklow (4 seats), and Wicklow–Wexford (3 seats).

The full scheme sees the 174 TDs returned from 13 3-seat constituencies, 15 4-seat constituencies and 15 5-seat constituencies, but the automatic return of the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) in one of the 4-seat constituencies meant that, in effect, 173 TDs were to be elected from 14 3-seaters, 14 4-seaters and 15 5-seaters. A total of 686 candidates stood for these 173 seats, well beyond the previous record number of 566 reached in 2011.

Campaign

It seemed to lack any dominant theme, and observers used such terms as dull, boring, flat and lacklustre about it. Notwithstanding that, it had some effect, as support for Fine Gael, as recorded in opinion polls, dropped steadily during the three-week campaign. Some campaign posters:

Manifestoes

It has become the custom for parties to allow policies to emerge in a rather piecemeal fashion, with the formal manifestos launched some time into the campaign. Some policies are kept back until the manifestoes are launched; or, as some cynics see it, are hastily put together in the hours leading up to the manifesto launch in the light of what seems most likely to win votes.

In alphabetical order: Aontú manifesto (Part 1, Part 2); Fianna Fáil manifesto; Fine Gael manifesto; Green Party manifesto; Independent Ireland manifesto; Labour manifesto; People Before Profit manifesto; Sinn Féin manifesto; Social Democrats manifesto; Solidarity manifesto.

Results 2024

The 2024 election will be fully analysed in How Ireland Voted 2024 (Springer / Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). The raw figures are:

Electorate: 3,715,264. Turnout (valid votes / electorate): 59.28% (-2.93% compared with the 2020 figure), though the uncertain (ie inflated) state of the electoral register means that not too much importance should be attached to this.

Note: Figures exclude the 174th TD, the outgoing Ceann Comhairle (Speaker), a Fianna Fáil TD returned without contest in Kildare South. Some parties or groups that contested the 2020 election did not contest this time, which explains why the gains and losses do not always add to zero.

Source: Irish Times, 2 and 3 December 2024. It tends to take several months after election day before official results are published.

Fragmentation and disproportionality

The effective number of elective parties, at 7.32, is the highest ever (previous peak 6.57 in 2016), reflecting the fact that even the strongest party won fewer than 22 per cent of the votes and the strongest three won not much more than 60 per cent between them. The electoral system, as usual and like all electoral systems, exerted a defractionalising effect, but even so the effective number of parliamentary parties, at 5.48, is the second highest ever, behind only the 2020 figure. This high degree of parliamentary fragmentation has been attenuated somewhat since the election by the decision of a number of independents to come together in two 'technical groups'. The level of disproportionality is on a par with the pattern in evidence from 1997 onwards (it was lower before this) and is very close to the figures for 2007 and 2016; it is created mainly by the over-representation of the largest three parties, which between them won 61.7% of the votes and 71.7% of the seats.

Note: figures based on treating each independent candidate as a separate unit.

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 29 November, then the allocation of the 173 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 FF 40, FG 39, SF 35, Soc Dems 9, Labour 9, Aontú 7, Independent Ireland 7, Green Party 6, PBP–Solidarity 5, Irish Freedom Party 1, The Irish People 1, 100% Redress 1, National Party 1. The other 12 seats would have gone to independents: Michael Healy-Rae, Michael Lowry, Verona Murphy, Seán Canney, Mattie McGrath, Danny Healy-Rae, Carol Nolan, Kevin 'Boxer' Moran, Noel Grealish, Brian Stanley and Catherine Connolly, with the final seat likely to go to a candidate of Michael Healy-Rae's choosing since on his own he won enough votes to qualify for 2 seats. Thus the strongest five parties (FF, FG, SF, SD and Labour) combined, which in relation to first preference votes would have won 132 seats under the Sainte-Laguë method applied at national level, actually won 146 seats, while the next four (Aontú, Independent Ireland, Green Party and PBP–Solidarity), which would have won 25, actually won only 10.

Under the D'Hondt method, which tends to give the benefit of the doubt to larger parties, the figures would have been FF 44, FF 42, SF 39, Soc Dems 9, Labour 9, Aontú 8, Independent Ireland 7, Green Party 6, PBP–Solidarity 5, Irish Freedom Party 1. There would have been only 3 Independent TDs: Michael Healy-Rae, Michael Lowry and Verona Murphy.

Turnover of TDs

Renewal amounted to over a third of the Dáil. When the Dáil was dissolved in early November 2024 it had 155 members (5 of the 160 seats were vacant, 4 TDs having been elected to the European Parliament in June while a fifth resigned due to ill-health in August). Of these, 30 did not stand at the election (16 of these from FG), leaving 125 who stood for re-election. One of these, the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) was automatically re-elected, so 124 incumbents contested the election. Of these, 98 were re-elected and 26 were defeated.

These 98 re-elected TDs were joined by 75 others: 9 former TDs regaining a seat (Jerry Buttimer, Malcolm Byrne, Ruth Coppinger, Timmy Dooley, Pat the Cope Gallagher, Paul Gogarty, Séamus Healy, Kevin 'Boxer' Moran, and Eamon Scanlon) and 66 first-time TDs.

As always, incumbents fared better pro rata than non-incumbents: almost 80 per cent of incumbents who stood for re-election were successful.

Altogether, then, 58.6 per cent of voters saw their first preference choice elected; the proportion is much the same in 3-seat, 4-seat and 5-seat constituencies.

The 130 candidates with the most votes received more votes than the other 556 put together. There were 237 candidates who received fewer than 1,000 first preference votes, of whom 143 received fewer than 500 and 33 received fewer than 100.

Three candidates were elected with fewer than 3,000 first preferences: Marie Sherlock (Lab, Dub Central, 2465 votes), Conor Sheehan (Lab, Limerick City, 2733 votes) and Roderic O'Gorman (Green, Dub W, 2909 votes). In contrast, three unsuccessful candidates each received more than 7,000 first preferences, the highest number being Billy O'Shea (FG, Kerry, 7932 votes).

Gender balance in the Dáil

Effectively no change. The candidate gender quota – the proportion of women, and of men, that parties must have among their candidates if they are not to forfeit part of their state funding – went up from 30 per cent to 40 per cent, and while all the parties that qualify for state funding complied with this requirement, the impact on the composition of the Dáil was negligible. Among elected TDs, women's presence rose from 36 out of 159 in 2020 to 44 out of 173 in 2024. There is significant variation among parties: SF leads the way at 38.5%, followed by SD at 36.4%, with FG 26.3%, Labour 18.2% and FF 14.6%. In a 2020 article in Irish Political Studies (35:4), Fiona Buckley and Yvonne Galligan use the term 'sacrificial lambs' to describe some female candidates, typically holding no electoral office and often added to the ticket at the last moment, clearly put forward by some parties simply in order to meet the candidate gender quota and not with any expectation that they might challenge for a seat. There were plenty of such candidates in 2024: for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent Ireland in particular, their lowest-performing candidates were disproportionately female.

In five constituencies a majority of TDs are female: Carlow–Kilkenny, Dublin Fingal W, Dublin SC, Galway W, Louth. In a further three the gender balance is even: Dublin Central, Dublin Rathdown, and Meath E. But in 14 there are no female TDs at all: Cork E, Cork NC, Cork NW, Cork SC, Donegal, Dublin NW, Dublin SW, Galway E, Laois, Limerick City, Limerick County, Tipperary N, Tipperary S, Wicklow–Wexford.

As in 2020, on average male candidates won more votes than female candidates; of course, in order to assess the effect of gender upon votes received, any analysis would need to control for factors such as party and electoral status.

Note: the 174th TD, returned without a contest as outgoing Ceann Comhairle, is male.

How many TDs are alumni of the Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin?

There are at least seven. In alphabetical order, with graduation date, these are: Dara Calleary (FF, Mayo; 1996); Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG, Dun Laoghaire; 2002); Jack Chambers (FF, Dublin W; 2013); Paschal Donohoe (FG, Dublin Central; 1996); Gary Gannon (Soc Dem, Dublin Central; 2012); Shane Moynihan (FF, Dublin Mid-West; 2006); Marie Sherlock (Labour, Dublin Central; 2004). Shane Moynihan also holds a PhD (2012) from Trinity's Department of Political Science. See also alumni page here, and list of notable alumni here.

Government formation

With FF and FG, coalition partners between 2020 and 2024, having 86 of the 174 seats between them, immediate expectations were that these two parties would reach an agreement among themselves and look to a number of independent TDs, or a small grouping of independent TDs, to 'get them over the line', 88 TDs constituting a majority. The full story will be in Chapter 12 of How Ireland Voted 2024, written by Eoin O'Malley.

Are the betting markets a reliable guide to what will happen?

Probably not. A study of these markets at the 2007 election concluded that for the most part they followed the opinion polls rather than constituting an independent distillation of informed opinion (see here). By bookmakers' standards the amount of money waged on election markets is small, and it doesn't take much money to change them, sometimes dramatically. That is particularly true of the markets on individual constituency outcomes. Insofar as they usually capture conventional wisdom, they tend to be reasonably accurate as pointers, but they can be wrong as often as conventional wisdom is wrong. In 2016 a candidate who was priced at 1–100 (100–1 on, ie a virtual certainty) was defeated. Believing that a candidate's chances of being elected are improving simply because his / her odds are shortening would be a classic example of herd instinct in operation.

For context and background to the 2024 election:

Politics in the Republic of Ireland, 7th ed (Abingdon: Routledge, 2024). This has chapters on every aspect of politics and government, including a chapter explaining and assessing the distinctive PR-STV electoral system plus one on electoral behaviour.

And should you wish to study for a degree in Politics, the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin has highly regarded undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

 

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Last updated 16 December, 2024 10:22 AM