With early counts completed in the Galway West and Dublin Central byelections, the pictures that took shape once the ballot boxes were opened (and forecast by The Irish Times/TG4 polls during the campaign) have largely firmed up.
From early on, Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats looked to be in an unassailable position in Dublin, and he topped the poll comfortably on the first count. The subsequent counts demonstrated his superior ability to attract transfers and his victory over his Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan looks set to be quite comfortable in the end.
[ Live coverage of the Dublin Central byelection countOpens in new window ]
The wave of support for Gerry Hutch, the veteran criminal and Independent candidate in Dublin, that some of the parties had feared did not materialise – instead, Malachy Steenson, an Independent councillor with some anti-immigration views, has performed more strongly than expected, taking some of those votes Hutch had targeted.
In Galway West, the picture was slower to emerge. The first count confirmed Labour’s Helen Ogbu would emerge as the leading candidate of the left – and therefore should benefit strongly from left-wing transfers, especially among city voters. However, she will be too far behind Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne and Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas, the front runners, to challenge for the seat.
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It’s too soon to say definitively which of those two will be off to the Dáil – but all the advantage seems to lie with Kyne. Ogbu’s transfers may end up being decisive, and it’s hard to see them favouring Thomas over the Fine Gael candidate. But there’s a lot of votes to be counted before then.
[ Live coverage of the Galway West byelection countOpens in new window ]
So who are the winners and losers of these campaigns?
It has been a very good day for the Social Democrats, confirming that the party has generated real momentum since the last election. It is hard to see the party holding two seats in Dublin Central in the next general election, so perhaps a European run might beckon for Gary Gannon, though that is for another day.
For now, the party can bask in the success in the capital and make plans for further gains in the future. There is very often a party that catches the voters’ imaginations and enjoys an electoral wave. If that is going to happen at the next general election, then the Social Democrats stand a better chance than anyone else of catching it.
Ennis and Kyne in poll position on a bad day for big parties
A good day also for Fine Gael, and its leader Simon Harris. Kyne’s election is not done and dusted in the way that Ennis’s seems to be, but he has outperformed the pre-election expectations and given his leader – who campaigned hard in Galway over the last 10 days – a timely boost. Even in Dublin, while Ray McAdam’s vote is a little behind expectations, he has done well enough to put himself in contention for a seat at the next general election. And in reality, that was always the game here.
The same could be said for Ogbu in Galway and Janet Horner of the Green Party in Dublin, bearing out the first law of Irish elections – it’s about the candidates.
If Thomas doesn’t win in Galway, it will be a disappointment for Independent Ireland, who hoped the fuel protests would carry him home. (They may yet, of course). But even if Thomas does not take the seat, his strong vote confirms that in many places there will be a viable option to the right of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
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In Dublin Central, that option is much farther to the right. Gerry Hutch did not perform as well as some had predicted, but Steenson – anti-establishment, angry at lots of things – performed better. The combined votes of both, repeated in a general election, would be more than sufficient to take a Dáil seat for one of them; with Steenson perhaps the better long-term bet.
There’s plenty of competition among the losers, too. Fianna Fáil’s performance in Dublin Central was abysmal, probably ending up as its worst ever byelection result. The party is moribund in what used to be – a relatively short time ago – one of its citadels. Though in fairness to everyone, this is hardly a surprise. Galway West looks likely to be considerably better, though. The party’s candidate Cillian Keane will be well ahead of rivals in the Social Democrats, Greens – and ahead of Sinn Féin, and is set to transfer handsomely to Fine Gael.
Mary Lou McDonald is having the most miserable day of all the leaders. She has conceded that it isn’t Sinn Féin’s day, dismissing suggestions of pressure on her leadership by remarking that “pressure is for tyres”. Very good. But pressure is also for party leaders who don’t deliver election victories.
The Dublin Central loss – in her own constituency – is especially worrying for the party. It shows how Sinn Féin is being squeezed on one side by the soft left in the Social Democrats, and on the other by the new right in Steenson and Hutch. It is not clear that McDonald has an answer to this.
