“I have one question for you,” Helen Breslin, a resident of the North Strand, tells Green Party Dublin Central byelection candidate Janet Horner.
“When are cyclists going to obey the rules of the road?”
Horner starts to answer before Breslin adds “it’s treacherous”, outlining places nearby where she has observed cyclists not stopping at red lights.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman – along for the canvass on a sunny Wednesday afternoon – replies that there is “a lot of bad behaviour on our roads” from cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.
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Horner, a Dublin city councillor, adds: “There’s a cultural element on our streets where people are just rude to each other.” Breslin says she believes there has to be a penalty for this.
The candidate says she agrees “100 per cent”, before being called over to meet the next potential voters by her team on the fast-moving campaign trail.
Breslin joked at Horner’s departure, “no offence – I’ll keep the top man [at the door]” to which O’Gorman replies: “I want the top woman [Horner] in with me after this election. It would be great to have the two of us there [in the Dáil].”
O’Gorman was the only Green TD to survive the party’s near electoral wipeout in 2024 after a stint in coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Cabra-based Neasa Hourigan lost the party’s seat in Dublin Central at that stage.
The party leader chats further with Breslin on various topics. She says afterwards that there is still a question mark over who she will vote for, but she does not rule Horner out.
She is one of a crowded field of left-wing candidates vying for one seat in the left-leaning constituency. The vacancy arose after Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe resigned his seat late last year to take a job with the World Bank in Washington.
Lord Mayor of Dublin Ray McAdam is hoping to retain the seat for Fine Gael, while Cllr John Stephens is flying the flag for Fianna Fáil, in former taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s old stomping grounds.
The sitting TDs in the four-seat constituency are Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats and Marie Sherlock of the Labour Party, who narrowly took the last seat ahead of veteran criminal turned Independent politician Gerry Hutch.
Gardaí in court have described Hutch as the figurehead of the Hutch crime gang involved in the Kinahan-Hutch feud. He was cleared of the murder of David Byrne during a Hutch gang attack at the Regency Hotel in 2016. The Special Criminal Court said it was satisfied he was in control of the three AK-47 rifles used in the attack. He is running again in a diverse constituency that encompasses disadvantaged and gentrified areas from the north inner city to Cabra and Drumcondra to the north.
The candidates The Irish Times joined on canvasses said housing and the cost of living are the main issues being raised on the doorsteps.
The conventional wisdom is that Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan, a councillor, should romp home in her party leader’s backyard.
However, there has also been speculation – in the absence of any published constituency-specific opinion poll so far – that Cllr Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats is a frontrunner among the left-wing candidates.
Three of his rivals – Horner, Labour’s Ruth O’Dea and People Before Profit’s Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin – do not, unsurprisingly, accept this view.
Horner says there have been some “narrow” assumptions around Dublin Central, including that the north inner city – Ennis’s home patch – defines the entire constituency. She finds it “frustrating reading weak media narratives” about the area.
“I think I’ve got a very strong record as a representative for this area,” she adds.
Her pitch to voters is that she has been a councillor since 2019, working on issues like social housing, regeneration of derelict areas and safer streets.
At a national level, Horner says she would be a “strong voice” for investment in public transport, renewable energy to bring down costs for households, and care for people “at all life stages”. She highlights childcare as another big issue in Dublin Central.
Across the constituency, O’Dea, a first-time candidate, is knocking on doors in Stoneybatter. She is joined by party leader Ivana Bacik and a team including former leaders Alan Kelly and Joan Burton, party general secretary Billie Sparks, former Dublin Central TD Joe Costello and Cork North Central TD Eoghan Kenny. O’Dea is adamant that the outcome is not a foregone conclusion.
“Nobody owns that seat, and that’s what I hate. People say it to me as well on the doors, ‘oh yeah, you’re going for Paschal’s seat’,” she says. “It’s not Paschal’s seat, it’s not Dan’s [Ennis’s] seat, it’s not [Janice] Boylan’s seat, okay?”
O’Dea says it is up to the voters to choose. “I happen to think that I will be their best representative because I understand the issues, because I’ve been around for a while,” she adds. “I’m a mother. I’ve worked in Women’s Aid. I’ve seen how, when people are left behind, how difficult it is and I’ve supported people in the worst times to get back their life.”
She now works in sitting TD Sherlock’s constituency office and says she is “supporting people every day on housing – you know, people who are about to become homeless”.
“This is an open match. Anyone can take this seat.”
O’Dea highlights her record while chatting to one man who answers his door, Jack King.
Bacik chipped in with the argument that the byelection is “a good opportunity to send a message to Government that more needs to be done to support households, PAYE workers, people who have been left behind.
“We saw that in the recent protests,” the party leader adds.
King, who is undecided on who he will vote for, afterwards says: “I don’t know if Labour is the top of the list but I’ll give them my consideration.”
Further down the street Geraldine Halpin, a member of a local school’s parents’ association asks O’Dea how they can get a zebra crossing for children walking home across a “hair-raising” road. The candidate offers some advice on the matter.
Halpin remained another undecided voter, for now.
Later in the evening, People Before Profit’s Ó Ceannabháin, a musician, is also knocking on doors in Stoneybatter with his team.
He ran in the local and general elections in 2024 and achieved a respectable vote, but fell short of taking a seat.
Ó Ceannabháin was involved in a 2021 campaign opposing the building of a hotel on a Smithfield site that includes the traditional music venue, the Cobblestone Pub. Dublin City Council ultimately refused planning permission for the project.
More recently, he was involved in efforts to keep The Complex, an arts centre in the same part of the city, open.
Both campaigns are highlighted to potential voters on Wednesday as he also tells people he is active on housing and climate issues.
“If I get elected I’ll use my platform basically to build grassroots campaigns in communities,” he tells one woman who will not be around to vote on polling day, and to “fight for a different kind of housing system, for action on the cost of living”.
Ó Ceannabháin adds: “Fundamentally I think we need a change from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”
At another door, artist Margaret Lonergan tells Ó Ceannabháin she “chanted behind you” at one of the demonstrations during the campaign to save The Complex. They discuss a shortage of publicly owned work spaces for artists in the city.
She says she will “definitely be voting left” but is yet to decide on a specific candidate.
Ó Ceannabháin’s pitch for her number one vote includes how People Before Profit wants a left-wing government.
Lonergan says that would be good, but points out that past experience suggests the left “struggles to unite”.
Ó Ceannabháin says the presidential campaign of former Independent TD Catherine Connolly is a “great example” of parties of the left working together.
He tells The Irish Times that People Before Profit “have a really strong campaign” in Dublin Central and his chances “shouldn’t be written off, absolutely not”.
