Irish local elections, 2014

[EPG]

Ireland elects 31 county and city councils today, simultaneously with the European Parliament elections. Polling closes in one hour.

These elections mark the beginning of the biggest local government reform in the history of the State, including the mergers of North and South Tipperary, Limerick City and County and Waterford City and County, the abolition of all councils below county and city level, the addition of new seats to high-population councils and the removal of seats from low-population councils, and the conferral on councils of the power to vary the local property tax of 0.18% on most properties. It is fair to say that nothing like these changes has happened nationally since the 19th century. Thus, it may be difficult to map some changes precisely from the last election in 2009.

Since 2009, Fianna Fáil crashed out of government and have barely recovered any ground, the new government parties lost substantial support and wouldn't be close to re-election today, and the anti-system forces picked that support up (Sinn Féin and the far-left mostly for below-average earners, Independents mostly for farmers and above-average earners). Being a mid-term election, the local elections will only intensify that swing away from the government parties.

In 2009, Fine Gael won the most votes on most councils. Labour won in Dublin City and the north county area. Fianna Fáil won only its heartland of Clare - and that by a whisker - as well as Offaly (favourite son effect), Donegal and Westmeath. In practice, councils are governed by a civil servant as county/city manager. Informal coalitions do exist to negotiate the budgets proposed by the county manager.

Seat shares under PR-STV generally reflect first-preference vote (FPV) shares well. However, they reward inoffensiveness and broad sympathy for a party by increasing its transfer-attractiveness. Extreme or unpopular parties are transfer-repellent. Thus, PR-STV tends to reward centrists and intensify defeats. In 2009, there were some seat/FPV mismatches. Fine Gael won the most seats in Clare while Labour won the most in Galway City and South Dublin. Even Sinn Féin took the most seats on a council (Monaghan - a close 3-way split with Fine Gael taking the most votes).

Polling in one local electoral area has been cancelled due to the death of a candidate today; a new poll will be held. Therefore, final results are unlikely for at least several weeks.

Results by new county.



Results by old Local Electoral Area (these have been redrawn since 2009). The Socialist Party won in Cork City North-Central and Castleknock, Co. Dublin. The WUAG won in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. Navan, Co. Meath was a tie between FG and FF.

[EPG]

Tallaght was developed in the 70s as suburban rehousing for the kids of city-centre council tenants, back when the number of children per family was high enough to make that life-cycle effect an important determinant of the timing of social housing construction in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1970s (thank you Mother Church). Maybe similar to other European housing projects built at the time - with the caveats that, being Ireland, they weren't high-rise flats but rather terraced housing and, being suburban, it was far from traditional concentrations of jobs in the city centre.

Tallaght Central is most typical of Tallaght. It's similar to other low-income, low-home-ownership neighbourhoods of the capital like Ballyfermot.

Tallaght South is a more extreme version of Tallaght Central, comprising the peripheral housing estates and the mountains beyond them; it's perhaps the most deprived local electoral area in the State. Sinn Féin got over 50% of the vote there, which is enough for 3 or perhaps 4 seats out of 6. Those seats would have been taken from the AAA and Independent.

[EPG]

Oh, before I forget, RTEs coverage was truly awful. Made me grateful for having the Internet again (but even then again, getting good info has been far harder than it should be).

I strongly suspect that they are running out of money. The number of simple technical failings was remarkable.

[EPG]

Friends-and-neighbours effects dominate over party, in some cases. In fact, the revealed preferences of voters under STV are a pretty good argument against the implicit assumption in closed-list PR that voters are indifferent across members of the same party.