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.

[ObserverIE]

Longford tallies

Ballymahon (6 seats, quota 927)

*Colm Murray FG 924
Gerald Farrell FG 832
*Mark Casey Ind 815
*Mick Cahill FF 744
*Thomas Victory FF 672
Pat O'Toole FF 650
Paul Ross FG 648
*Seán Farrell FG 469
Edel Kelly SF 433
Niamh Moran Ind 304

Granard (6 seats, quota 1,025)

*Mícheál Carrigy FG 1,103
*P.J. Reilly FF 752
*John Duffy FG 748
Paraic Brady FG 734
*Luie McEntire FF 626
*Michael Mulleady FF 618
John Reilly SF 570
James Keogh Ind 505
*Frank Kilbride FG 485
John Coyle FF 382
Maura Kilbride-Harkin FG 342
Mary Lillis Ind 308

Longford (6 seats, quota 788)

*John Browne FG 709
Séamus Butler FF 675
*Peggy Nolan FG 623
Gerry Warnock Ind 604
Pádraig Connellan FF 503
Pádraig Loughrey FF 503
*Mae Sexton Ind 500
Yvonne Ní Mhurchú FG 481
*Paul Connell Ind 332
Barbara Smyth SF 246
Tony Flaherty Ind 235
Martin Clyne Ind 107

I'll post box tallies later if anyone is interested.

Of the indepedents, Lillis (Granard) and Flaherty (Longford) are FFers who lost out in nomination contests, Keogh (Granard) was FG until earlier this year.

[ObserverIE]

In case anyone was remarking on the slow pace of counting in the English local elections the other day, after fifteen hours of verification, tallying, sorting, counting and painfully meticulous rechecking of "doubtful" votes (including any votes which have a preference missing in the sequence or the same preference repeated twice), Longford County Council has managed two full counts in one electoral area with no elections and two eliminations and the count adjourned just after midnight.

We return at 11am tomorrow.

Pray for us. Or shoot us. Either will do the trick.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You're doing even worse than Tower Hamlets

[ObserverIE]

You're doing even worse than Tower Hamlets

We may yet face recounts in two out of the three electoral areas. The count will almost certainly continue until Monday.

In other news, the Labour councillor tally currently stands at 9. The question is whether they will end up with more or fewer councillors than they have TDs.

Elsewhere, the Mandela of Kilgarvan expresses a nation's hopes:

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[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

In case anyone was remarking on the slow pace of counting in the English local elections the other day, after fifteen hours of verification, tallying, sorting, counting and painfully meticulous rechecking of "doubtful" votes (including any votes which have a preference missing in the sequence or the same preference repeated twice), Longford County Council has managed two full counts in one electoral area with no elections and two eliminations and the count adjourned just after midnight.

We return at 11am tomorrow.

Pray for us. Or shoot us. Either will do the trick.

You're doing even worse than Tower Hamlets

I understand that one (one) of the major problems with the Tower Hamlets count is that the mayoral counting staff weren't properly briefed on what constitutes a spoilt paper under SV.  The result: 2,000 of the blasted things for the Returning Officer to go through.

[minionofmidas]

What's Tallaght like?

Because, you know, Tallaght Central and Tallaght South, combined council representation

SF 4, AAA 3, Labour 2, FF 1, PBP 1, i 1, FG 0. Yowza.

[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.

[Kevinstat]

It doesn't sound like voters in Tallaght (at least not Tallaght South, and probably not Tallaght Central either) would have approved of Fine Gael's "Tallaght Strategy" in the late '80s and early '90s.  

[ObserverIE]

What's Tallaght like?

Because, you know, Tallaght Central and Tallaght South, combined council representation

SF 4, AAA 3, Labour 2, FF 1, PBP 1, i 1, FG 0. Yowza.

Lewis!!!! Welcome back (even if it is only for the World Cup)!!!

Updates from the Land That Time, God and Anyone With a Bit of Sense Forgot (Longford)

Longford: FF 2 (Butler and Loughrey), FG 2 (Browne and Nolan), Ind 2 (Warnock and Sexton)
Ballymahon: FG 3 (Murray  Gerald Farrell and Ross), FF 2 (Cahill and O'Toole), Ind 1 (Casey)
Granard: FG 1 (Carrigy).

The entire rest of the count has been deferred for a total recount until 11am tomorrow because veteran councillor Frank Kilbride is losing by three votes to Reilly (SF). The thing is, the three vote margin won't affect the final result: whoever gets through will not overhaul the lowest remaining FF candidate (McEntire) who is 70 votes ahead. Instead, the counting staff, the other candidates and their tallyers, and the local media have to spend another 10 or so hours in a local sports hall for a foregone conclusion. More astute Irish viewers may be reminded of Dick "Cock" Roche's virutoso performance in the last general election count.

The remaining seats will go to Reilly (FF), Mulleady (FF), Brady (FG) and Duffy (FG).

FG 8 (-2) FF 7 (-1) Ind 3 (-)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Labour held up fairly well in my county of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and even one of their candidates topped the poll in my ward (Lettie McCarthy) - one of two LEAs in Dublin that did so... which probably sums up Labour's problems right now.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I understand that one (one) of the major problems with the Tower Hamlets count is that the mayoral counting staff weren't properly briefed on what constitutes a spoilt paper under SV.  The result: 2,000 of the blasted things for the Returning Officer to go through.

Oh good God...

[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.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Here's a very nerdy site that re-creates the live counts

I'll have more to say about it later but it makes really clear that a substantial proportion of voters were just preferencing independents regardless of who they were ahead of any 'party' candidate (real pity therefore it doesn't separate the Far left candidates from the other Indos)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, Sinn Fein the largest party on Dublin City Council. Also, 'Labour' wiped out in Cork City.

[joevsimp]

Here's a very nerdy site that re-creates the live counts

that is terrific! how come tey are so bad at keeping transfers within the same party?

[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.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Here's a very nerdy site that re-creates the live counts

that is terrific! how come tey are so bad at keeping transfers within the same party?

Usually it is because of personal voting (both for the number one preference and for the later candidates) and, especially in the non-urban wards, geographical preference (i.e. voting for people from 'your' area ahead of those who aren't regardless of party, although there are limits to this)