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2020 Irish general election: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:38, 14 February 2020

2020 Irish general election

← 2016 8 February 2020
159 of 160 seats in Dáil Éireann[a] 80 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	62.9% 2.2pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Micheál Martin Mary Lou McDonald Leo Varadkar Party Fianna Fáil Sinn Féin Fine Gael Leader since 26 January 2011 10 February 2018 2 June 2017 Leader's seat Cork South-Central Dublin Central Dublin West Last election 44 seats, 24.3% 23 seats, 13.8% 50 seats, 25.5% Seats before 45 22 47 Seats won 38[a] 37 35 Seat change 7 15 12 Popular vote 484,320 535,595 455,584 Percentage 22.2% 24.5% 20.9% Swing 2.1% 10.7% 4.7%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Eamon Ryan Brendan Howlin Catherine Murphy Róisín Shortall Party Green Labour Social Democrats Leader since 27 May 2010 20 May 2016 15 July 2015 Leader's seat Dublin Bay South Wexford Kildare North Dublin North-West Last election 2 seats, 2.7% 7 seats, 6.6% 3 seats, 3.0% Seats before 3 7 2 Seats won 12 6 6 Seat change 9 1 4 Popular vote 155,700 95,588 63,404 Percentage 7.1% 4.4% 2.9% Swing 4.4% 2.2% 0.1%   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   S-PBP I4C Leader Collective leadership Peadar Tóibín None Party Solidarity–PBP Aontú Inds. 4 Change Leader since n/a 28 January 2019 n/a Leader's seat n/a Meath West n/a Last election 6 seats, 3.9% New party 4 seats, 1.5% Seats before 6 1 1 Seats won 5 1 1 Seat change 1 0 0 Popular vote 57,420 41,614 8,421 Percentage 2.6% 1.9% 0.4% Swing 1.3% New party 1.1%
File:2020 Irish general election - Results.svg Results of the election by constituency.
Taoiseach before election Leo Varadkar Fine Gael Elected Taoiseach TBD TBD

The 2020 Irish general election took place on Saturday, 8 February 2020. This was the first election since 1918 to be held on a weekend instead of a weekday. The election was called following the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil by the President, at the request of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on 14 January 2020. 159 of 160 Dáil Éireann seats were contested, with the outgoing Ceann Comhairle being re-elected automatically.

The three largest parties each won a share of the vote between 20% and 25%. Fianna Fáil secured the most seats, with 38, including the outgoing Ceann Comhairle who was elected unopposed. Sinn Féin won the most first-preference votes and 37 seats, its best performance since its modern incarnation in 1970. Fine Gael, led by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, finished third in both number of seats (35) and first-preference votes. To secure a majority, a government would need the support of 80 or more TDs of the 160 seats in the Dáil. Any government would therefore need the support of more than two parties or a large group of Independent TDs, or a formal confidence and supply arrangement with another party that would agree to abstain on votes of confidence and the budget.

Since the 2016 Irish general election, Fine Gael led a minority government with the support of Independent TDs, including the Independent Alliance. It relied on a confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáil.

On 3 December 2019, a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy proposed by Catherine Murphy for the Social Democrats was defeated, with 53 votes in favour to 56 votes against and 35 registered abstentions.^[1] On 9 January 2020, Independent TD Michael Collins called for a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health Simon Harris.^[2] On 14 January, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar sought a dissolution of the Dáil which was granted by the president, with the 33rd Dáil to convene on 20 February at 12 noon.^[3][4] The election was set for 8 February, which was to be the first time a general election was held on a Saturday since 1918.^[5][6]

One hundred fifty-nine of the 160 members of Dáil Éireann were elected by single transferable vote (STV) from 39 constituencies, each returning between three and five TDs (Dáil deputies). Voters complete a paper ballot, numbering candidates 1, 2, 3, etc. for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. preference. Ballots are sent to the constituency count centre after polls close and are counted the following morning over several counts. In STV, each ballot is initially credited to its first-preference candidate but may be transferred on later counts to the next available preference where the first preference candidate is elected or eliminated.^[7]

A Constituency Commission, convened in July 2016 under the provisions of the Electoral Act 1997 with Judge Robert Haughton as chair, made recommendations on changes to constituency boundaries after publication of initial population data from the 2016 census.^[8][9] The Commission had some discretion but was constitutionally bound to allow no more than a ratio of 30,000 people per elected member, and was required by law to recommend constituencies of three, four or five seats, and to avoid – as far as was practicable – breaching county boundaries. The Commission report, released on 27 June 2017, recommended an increase in the number of TDs from 158 to 160 elected in 39 constituencies.^[10][11] These changes were implemented by the Electoral (Amendment) (Dáil Constituencies) Act 2017.^[12][13] The election of the 33rd Dáil is therefore being held using the new boundaries, for 160 seats.

As the outgoing Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, did not announce his retirement, he was automatically returned, and the remaining 159 of the 160 seats were up for election.^[14]

The following members of the 32nd Dáil did not seek re-election.

The campaign officially began after the dissolution of Dáil Éireann on 14 January 2020 and lasted until polling day on 8 February 2020. Polling was just over a week after the United Kingdom (which includes Northern Ireland) withdrew from the European Union, making it the first major election to be held within the EU since Brexit. The election took place on a Saturday for the first time since the 1918 election.^[33] Leo Varadkar said that the change of day was to prevent school closures (many schools in Ireland are used as polling stations) and to make it easy for third-level students and those working away from home to vote.^[34]

Nomination of candidates closed on Wednesday, 22 January. A record number of women were nominated, with 162 of the 531 candidates.^[35] This was the first Irish general election in which there was a female candidate running in every constituency. If a party does not have a minimum of 30% male and 30% female candidates, it forfeits half of their state funding. At close of nominations, Fine Gael had 30.5% female candidates, Fianna Fáil had 31%, Labour had 32%, Sinn Féin had 33%, People Before Profit had 38%, the Green Party had 41%, and the Social Democrats had 57%, all passing the quota.^[36]

Parties contesting a general election for the first time included Aontú, Irish Freedom Party, National Party and RISE (as part of S–PBP).

Voter registration via the Supplementary Register of Voters closed on 23 January, with very high registration taking place on the last day – Dublin City Council, for example, reporting 3,500 registrations on the final day allowed, and a total of 14,000 additional registrations, reported to be twice the normal amount for a general election.^[37]

On 3 February 2020, the returning officer for Tipperary cancelled the writ of election there, as required by Section 62 of the Electoral Act 1992, after the death of candidate Marese Skehan.^[38] However, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government formed a view that the 1992 provision breached the constitutional requirement that elections take place within 30 days of a Dáil dissolution, so on 5 February he issued a Special Difficulty Order allowing the election to proceed on the same date as other constituencies.^[39][40] Skehan's name remained on the ballot paper.^[41]

The first leaders' debate took place on Virgin Media One on 22 January, but was restricted to Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin.^[52]

A leaders' debate featuring seven party leaders/representatives took place on RTÉ One on Monday 27 January, from NUI Galway.^[53][54]

On 27 January, RTÉ published an article explaining its rationale as to whom it invited to appear in televised leadership debates.^[55] Aontú announced that it would seek a High Court injunction in order to prevent the broadcast of the leaders' debate scheduled for the same day but later in the day they announced that they would not proceed with the action.^[56]

A further RTÉ debate was scheduled for 4 February, again on RTÉ One, and featuring only Varadkar and Martin. Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, had objected to her exclusion, and Sinn Féin threatened legal action if it was excluded from this debate.^[57] On 3 February, RTÉ announced that it had invited McDonald to participate in the final debate, in part due to Sinn Féin's standing in recent opinion polls, and Sinn Féin confirmed that it would accept the invitation.^[58][59]

A final debate between the leader of smaller parties took place on 6 February on RTÉ One.

Opinion polls on voting intentions were conducted regularly. Polls were published on an approximately monthly basis by The Sunday Business Post (which uses the Red C polling company) and The Sunday Times (which used the Behaviour and Attitudes polling company for all of its polls since 2016 until its final poll prior to the election, for which it used Panelbase).

Less frequent polls were published by The Irish Times, Sunday Independent, Irish Mail on Sunday, RTÉ News, and others.

The chart below depicts the results of opinion polls since the previous general election.

Polls opened at 07:00 UTC and closed at 22:00 UTC. The total poll was down by 2.2% to 62.9% compared to the previous election, despite it being held on a Saturday. However, severe weather warnings were in place over much of the country due to Storm Ciara.

Counting of the votes commenced at 09:00 UTC on 9 February and concluded at 23:59 UTC on 10 February, with Galway East being the first constituency to report and Cavan-Monaghan being the final constituency to report.^[60][61]

The results of the election showed a close contest between three parties, with Fianna Fáil winning 38 seats in the Dáil Éireann, which includes one seat held by the Ceann Comhairle, whose seat is secured and is not contested. Second place in terms of seats was Sinn Féin which won 37 seats, a gain of fifteen over the previous election. Fine Gael, the party of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, lost twelve seats to drop to third place. Among the smaller parties, the Green Party showed the largest gains, increasing from three to twelve seats, a gain of nine over the previous election. In terms of popular vote, despite their close second place finish in terms of parliamentary seats, Sinn Féin received the most first-preference votes nationwide, though no single party secured more than 25% of the first-preference votes, nor more than 25% of the seats.

Journalists commented on the effects of Sinn Féin's late surge and unexpectedly high first-preference vote. John Drennan listed eleven constituencies where it might have won another seat had it run an extra candidate.^[62] Marie O'Halloran said Sinn Féin transfers affected the outcome of 21 constituencies, favouring other left-wing parties.^[63] Sean Murray noted that Solidarity-PBP benefited most from Sinn Féin transfers.^[64]

33rd Irish general election – 8 February 2020^[65][66][67]

Party		Leader	First-preference votes			Seats
			Votes	% FPv[d]	Swing (pp)	Cand. [69]	2016	Out.	Elected 2020	Change
Sinn Féin	Mary Lou McDonald	535,595	24.5	10.7	42	23	22	37 / 160 (23%)	14
Fianna Fáil	Micheál Martin	484,320	22.2	2.2	84	44	45	37 / 160 (23%)	6
Fine Gael	Leo Varadkar	455,584	20.9	4.7	82	49	47	35 / 160 (22%)	14
Green	Eamon Ryan	155,700	7.1	4.4	39	2	3	12 / 160 (8%)	10
Labour	Brendan Howlin	95,588	4.4	2.2	31	7	7	6 / 160 (4%)	1
Social Democrats	Catherine Murphy Róisín Shortall	63,404	2.9	0.1	20	3	2	6 / 160 (4%)	3
Solidarity–PBP[c]	Collective leadership	57,420	2.6	1.3	36	6	6	5 / 160 (3%)	1
Aontú	Peadar Tóibín	41,614	1.9	new party	26	New	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	1
Inds. 4 Change	None	8,421	0.4	1.1	4	4	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	3
Irish Freedom	Hermann Kelly	5,495	0.3	new party	11	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
Renua	Vacant	5,473	0.3	1.9	11	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
National Party	Justin Barrett	4,773	0.2	new party	10	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
Irish Democratic	Ken Smollen	2,611	0.1	0.1	1	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
Workers' Party of Ireland	Michael Donnelly	1,195	0.1	0.1	4	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
United People	Jeff Rudd	43	0.0	new party	1	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
Independent politicians in Ireland	—	266,529	12.2	3.7[e]	125	19[e]	22[e]	19 / 160 (12%)	0
Ceann Comhairle	Seán Ó Fearghaíl	N/A	N/A	N/A	1	1	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	0
Spoilt votes				—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Total			2,183,765	100%	—	552[69]	158	157[b]	160	2
Registered voters/Turnout				62.9%	—	—	—	—	—	—

As there are 160 members of Dáil Éireann (including the Ceann Comhairle who casts a vote only in the case of a tie), 80 TDs are needed to form a governing coalition. A smaller group could form a minority government if they can negotiate a confidence and supply agreement with another party.

During the campaign, the leaders of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil ruled out forming a coalition government with Sinn Féin.^[70]

Some in Fianna Fáil were reported to favour going into coalition with Sinn Féin over renewing an arrangement with Fine Gael. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald announced her intention to try to form a coalition government without either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. However, she did not rule out a coalition with either party.^[70] After the results came in on 10-11 February, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar continued to rule out a Fine Gael coalition with Sinn Féin, while Micheál Martin changed tack and left open the possibility of a Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin coalition or a "grand coalition" with Fine Gael.^[71] On 12 February, Varadkar conceded that he would likely become the next Opposition Leader, adding that as the party with the highest vote, the responsibility falls to Sinn Féin to build a coalition that allows it to keep its campaign promises, and that Fine Gael was "willing to step back" to allow Sinn Féin to do so.^[72]

Sinn Féin have also stated an intention to form a broad left coalition; combined, the parties of the left have 67 seats (37 Sinn Féin, 12 Green, 6 Labour, 6 Social Democrats, 5 Solidarity-PBP, and 1 Independents 4 Change), so the support of at least 13 independents (out of 19 total) would be needed to form a government.^[73][71] A Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael coalition would have 72 seats and so would need support from smaller parties or independents to form a government. A Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin coalition would have 74 seats, which would also require smaller party or independent support.^[74]