Ireland 2009

[Democratic Hawk]

553 of 883 seats declared

Fine Gael	204	(Won 293 seats in 2004)
Fianna Fáil	118	(302)
Labour	108	(101)
Sinn Féin	34	(54)
Greens	2	(18)
Ind/Other	87	(115)

[Јas]

553 of 883 seats declared

Fine Gael	204	(Won 293 seats in 2004)
Fianna Fáil	118	(302)
Labour	108	(101)
Sinn Féin	34	(54)
Greens	2	(18)
Ind/Other	87	(115)

Greens wiped out in Dublin - home to 5 of their 6 TDs.
Of the 2 seats they've won so far, Brian Meeney held his seat in Ennis West and a rare gain for Mark Dearey in Dundalk South.
It looks like Malcolm Noonan will hold on in Kilkenny as well, but I'm hard pressed to find too many more who would be favoured to do so at this stage.

[Јas]

About to lose my net access until tomorrow morning.

Doesn't look like any of the 4 Euro constituencies will be sorted today anyhow.
No real firm tallies available from anywhere, but it does look like FF are going to lose out in Dublin to either McDonald (SF) or Higgins (Soc).
Looks like FG will lose their 2nd seat in East to Lab. FF to just about take the 3rd.
In North-West, nobody outside Libertas are now predicting Ganley to take the last seat, though it might be an uncomfortably good performance for him.
In South, nobody seems to be prepared to call the final seat between FG, Lab, SF or Sinnott. That might still be unclear by this time tomorrow.

[Kevinstat]

So there seems to be a chance that FG might lose its second seat in one European Parliamentary constituency (East) but at the same time gain a second seat in another constituency (South)?

[Kevinstat]

I had a rather sorry looking set of options for the locals.

FF lost the seat in Jas's local government constituency (Castleblayney in Mohaghan, which lost a seat to Monaghan (Town) in a local government redistribution since the last election (did the boundaries change at all Jas?) due to poor vote ballancing.  Five candidates (2 FF, 2 FG, and 1 SF, all incumbents except for one FF candidates (the one didn't win a seat)), ran for four seats.  The vote by party was 40.5% FF, 38.4% FG, and 21.1% SF.  But the two FG candidates received 21.2% and 17.2% of the vote respectively, while the FF incumbent topped the poll with 26.8%, leaving his runningmate with only 13.7%.  The quota must have been 1 vote or fraction thereof over 20% of the vote.  Count details aren't available but the second FG candidate was elected on the third count, so after two of the three candidates (the top FF and FG candidates unless some of the poll-toppers surplusses were allowed to transfer to the already elected Shinner) elected on the first count had their surpluses transferred.  The SF surplus might have narrowed the final margin.  You can view the results for Castleblayney here.  Don't ask me why I didn't mention any of the candidates' names.

[Kevinstat]

City and County Councils:

813 of 883 seats declared

Fine Gael	315	(Won 293 seats in 2004)
Fianna Fáil	194	(302)
Labour	125	(101)
Sinn Féin	50	(54)
Greens	3	(18)
Ind/Other	126	(115)

[Kevinstat]

Pat The Cope Gallagher (that's actually listed on the RTÉ results page) seems likely to get elected in North West[/url], which would create a new vacancy in the Dail that was a Fianna Fáil seat, for which I've read here there would likely eventually be a by-election that Fianna Fáil would be hard-pressed to win if their fortunes hadn't improved significantly.  Fine Gael under a quota in North West at 23.8% of the first count vote but their leading candidate Jim Higgins is in third with 16.2% with Libertas's Declan Ganley in fourth with 14.3% and Sinn Féin's Pádraig MacLochlainn in fifth with 9.2%, and there's a 5.8% vote for Labour's Susan O'Keeffe that together with FG "sweeper" Joe O'Reilly's 7.6% should see Higgins over the quota.  Still probably a dissapointing result for Fine Gael.

Fine Gael's Gay Mitchell has clinched a seat in Dublin (having over a quarter of the non-exhausted vote) after three counts but hasn't been declared elected as he isn't over a quota yet.

This analysis takes too long so I'll let others carry on from here (even if some of the "play-by-play" is after all seats have been awarded) and just ponder in some my spare time who might still be in contention.

[Kevinstat]

A good site to get results is http://www.rte.ie/news/elections/ .

[Јas]

Euro Election Count Updates

Dublin (Count Complete)
Seats: 3 (-1 on 2004)
Turnout: 50.8%
Quota: 101,658
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3	Count 4	Count 5	Count 6	Count 7
Gay Mitchell (FG)	96,715	99,098	100,810	104,413	101,658	101,658	101,658
Proinsias de Rossa (Lab)	83,471	85,217	87,274	94,306	95,636	103,225	103,225
Joe Higgins (Socialist)	50,510	52,457	53,038	55,116	55,351	60,165	82,366
Eoin Ryan (FF)	55,346	56,317	66,205	68,517	69,122	71,530	76,956
Mary Lou McDonald (SF)	47,928	50,097	50,980	52,447	52,529	55,429
Patricia McKenna (Ind)	17,521	21,523	22,380	25,213	25,636
Déirdre de Búrca (Green)	19,086	20,226	21,991
Eibhlin Byrne (FF)	18,956	19,448
Caroline Simons (Libertas)	13,514
Emmanuel Sweeney (Ind)	3,583

             
Mitchell and deRossa clearly safe after Count 1.
Close between Higgins, Ryan and McDonald on the first count, but it looked fairly clear there wasn't enough FF votes to get Ryan there. Higgins was always likely to be more transfer friendly than McDonald and so it proved.

The only significant delay to the Dublin count was when Deirdre de Burca sought a re-check on her elimination, officially because she was just short of getting to the rewuired votes to claim back a portion of her election expenses; really because she couldn't take falling behind ex-Green Patricia McKenna.

Caroline Simons (Libertas) is widely believe to have ran the most expensive campaign in the country and will no be delighted with 9th place.

The loss of Ryan caps a terrible election weekend for FF; FG will now be the biggest Irish party in Europe and the biggest in local government. A lot of effort was put into trying to hold this seat. Compared to elsewhere the -4.9% swing wasn't terrible, but their starting position in Dublin wasn't great to begin with.

The loss of McDonald is a blow to Sinn Féin as it leaves their most visible and well-known Southern politician unemployed. They have been unusual among parties this election cycle, in that they have neither collapsed like the Government parties or made substantial gains like all the other opposition parties.

Great to see Joe Higgins have a platform again. He was a very effective Government critic prior to his General Election defeat in 2007. The Socialist Party has also made gains in the Locals - so the signs indicate we could well see their return to the Dáil at the next election.

[doktorb]

Libertas really have fouled up all over the place, I cannot find a single result in UK or Ireland which justifies the cost or hype surrounding their campaign.

[Јas]

East (Count Ongoing)
Seats: 3 
Turnout: 56.8%
Total Valid Poll: 429,249     
Quota: 107,313 
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1	Count 2
Mairéad McGuinness (FG)	110,336	107,313
Nessa Childers (Lab)	78,338	78,914
Liam Aylward (FF)	74,666	74,866
John Paul Phelan (FG)	61,851	63,590
Thomas Byrne (FF)	31,112	21,264
Kathleen Funchion (SF)	26,567	26,647
Tomás Sharkey (SF)	20,932	21,034
Raymond O'Malley (Libertas)	18,557	18,728
Paddy Garvey (Ind)	2,934	2,945
Jim Tallon (Ind)	2,412	2,425
Micheál Grealy (Ind)	1,514	1,523

The count in East was suspended before midnight last night. McGuinness, as expected, topped the poll, but without a significant surplus for her running-mate to benefit and so it look's like FG are going to lose a seat here losing 0.4% of their vote share from 2004.

Labour's share is up 5.2% and Childers will take Labour's first seat in this constituency since 1979.

FF only saw a swing of 0.4% against them here. Aylward will be untouchable when Byrne's transfers come through.

Not a bad result for SF here. Up 2.4% and both Funchion and Sharkey now have stronger profiles going into the next General Election.

Raymond O'Malley was the least well known of the Libertas candidates when this campaign started and he remains so today - back to obscurity for him.

The most straightforward of the 4 counts, the result is fairly certain; final results should be in early-ish this evening.

[Јas]

North-West (Count Ongoing)
Seats: 3
Turnout: 63.4%     
Total Valid Poll: 495,257     
Quota: 123,815 
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1
Marian Harkin (Ind)	84,813
Pat The Cope Gallagher (FF)	82,643
Jim Higgins (FG)	80,093
Declan Ganley (Libertas)	70,638
Pádraig MacLochlainn (SF)	45,515
Paschal Mooney (FF)	42,985
Joe O'Reilly (FG)	37,564
Susan O'Keefe (Lab)	28,658
Michael McNamara (Ind)	12,744
Fiachra Ó Luain (Ind)	3,510
John Francis Higgins (Ind)	3,030
Noel McCullagh (Ind)	1,940
Thomas King (Ind)	1,124

       
The count was suspended for 2 hours last night while Declan Ganley complained that he believes thousands of his votes have been accidentally assigned elsewhere. The evidence suggests this is nonsense, and that Ganley's theatrics were designed to allow him to spin that he's still in the contest today and/or that he will be unfairly denied a seat in the end.

At any rate, at Ganley's request a re-check is being conducted this morning to see whether Ganley's assertions stand up.

Beyond that, I'm very happy to see my vote when to the plurality winning candidate. Harkin put in a stellar performance to top the poll and so has a very strong chance of taking a seat.

FF and FG are both just about certain to take seats as their secondary candidates both did well. Indeed, both parties did much as well as last time down 1.4% and 1.9% respectively, despite the Libertas resurgence.

The biggest swing against a party was for SF, -5.6%. Unless MacLochlainn's votes transfer very very heavily to Ganley, which is very unlikely, then this is all over.

I expect Susan O'Keefe's votes to transfer well to Harkin - and if Gallagher still hasn't reached the surplus, a significant share of MacLochlainn's votes are likely to go there for geographic reasons.

Ganley said that if he lost his seat he wouldn't campiang on Lisbon II. His prediction of leading 100 Libertas MEPs from across Europe is in tatters this morning, with I think, only Phillippe deVilliers in France elected on the Libertas ticket so far. Is this the ned of Ganley? Fingers crossed.

[Јas]

South (Count Ongoing)
Seats: 3
Turnout: 59.2%     
Total Valid Poll: 498,127       
Quota: 124,532 
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1	Count 2	Count 3	Count 4
Brian Crowley (FF)	118,258	119,625	122,404	132,410
Seán Kelly (FG)	92,579	94,430	96,153	97,482
Alan Kelly (Lab)	64,152	66,121	69,683	70,309
Toiréasa Ferris (SF)	64,671	65,861	67,304	68,296
Kathy Sinnott (Ind)	58,485	62,057	64,295	65,518
Colm Burke (FG)	53,721	54,617	57,190	57,884
Ned O'Keefe (FF)	16,596	16,896	17,124
Dan Boyle (Green)	15,499	16,250
Alexander Stafford (Ind)	11,692
Maurice Sexton (Ind)	2,474

   
Despite FF being -14% on 2004, Crowley is unstoppable and was always the safest FF Euro candidate. Expect him to re-appear to seek the FF nomination for the Presidency in 2011.

For FG, Seán Kelly's celebrity canditature has helped the party climb 4.8% but will unseat his running-mate Colm Burke, whose late much hyped chances disappeared with the first count.

Outside of Libertas, it looks like the Euro election's biggest spender is probably Alan Kelly. He has though got some return, with the party's vote up 8.8% and placing him with a genuine shot of claiming the party's first seat in this constituency since 1979.

Toiréasa Ferris did well for SF, but can't hope to pick up the necessary transfers. the distribution of her votes will decide this race.

Kathy Sinnott's vote is doen 6.7% on 2004, but is still figthing for the last seat here - and what's more, I think she is to be favoured on slipping past Alan Kelly on the final count. ()

[Јas]

I had a rather sorry looking set of options for the locals.

FF lost the seat in Jas's local government constituency (Castleblayney in Mohaghan, which lost a seat to Monaghan (Town) in a local government redistribution since the last election (did the boundaries change at all Jas?) due to poor vote ballancing.  Five candidates (2 FF, 2 FG, and 1 SF, all incumbents except for one FF candidates (the one didn't win a seat)), ran for four seats.  The vote by party was 40.5% FF, 38.4% FG, and 21.1% SF.  But the two FG candidates received 21.2% and 17.2% of the vote respectively, while the FF incumbent topped the poll with 26.8%, leaving his runningmate with only 13.7%.  The quota must have been 1 vote or fraction thereof over 20% of the vote.  Count details aren't available but the second FG candidate was elected on the third count, so after two of the three candidates (the top FF and FG candidates unless some of the poll-toppers surplusses were allowed to transfer to the already elected Shinner) elected on the first count had their surpluses transferred.  The SF surplus might have narrowed the final margin.  You can view the results for Castleblayney here.  Don't ask me why I didn't mention any of the candidates' names.

Yes, there was significant changes to this LEA, which if anything should have hurt O'Brien (the leading FF candidate more than the rest). He was helped by the fact that his running-mate is just a terrible candidate. Nonetheless, you're quite right, FF should have managed their vote much better here and could have taken a seond seat.

Count by count details are available from the County Council website: http://www.monaghan.ie/websitev2/Elections2009/LocalElectionResults.html

[Јas]

Pat The Cope Gallagher (that's actually listed on the RTÉ results page) seems likely to get elected in North West[/url], which would create a new vacancy in the Dail that was a Fianna Fáil seat, for which I've read here there would likely eventually be a by-election that Fianna Fáil would be hard-pressed to win if their fortunes hadn't improved significantly.

The last time a Government party won a by-election was 1982, that's a string of 20 defeats.
When you then take into account that between the 2 by-elections, FF saw a swing against them in the order of 26.6% - their chances of winning a by-election anywhere right now are negligable.

To me, the decision to run Gallagher, who was always likely to take a seat in this election, amounted to giving up a Dáil seat and a potentially serious miscalculation by FF HQ which could come back to bite them later.

[Јas]

Northern Ireland
Seats: 3
Turnout: 43%
Total Valid Poll: 484,572
Quota: 121,144
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1
Bairbre deBrún (SF)	126,184
Dianne Dodds (DUP)	88,346
Jim Nicholson (UUP)	82,893
Alban Maginness (SDLP)	78,489
Jim Allister (TUV)	66,197
Ian Parsley (Alliance)	26,699
Stephen Agnew (Green)	15,764

Counting began this morning in the North, because one doesn't count votes on the Sabbath there.

deBrún topped the poll, as expected (by everyone except the DUP who spent the entire campaign shouting about how they were the only one's who could stop this happening - as if it really matters).

Agnew and Parsley eliminated on Count 1. (Turns out there isn't a massive dsylexic DUP vote out there.)

Some had suggested the SDLP had a chance at sneaking in between the Unionists to take the second, but clearly that's not on given these numbers.

It'll be deBrún, Dodds and Nicholson.

[doktorb]

Northern Ireland
Seats: 3
Turnout: 43%
Total Valid Poll: 484,572
Quota: 121,144
Incumbents underlined.

	Count 1
Bairbre deBrún (SF)	126,184
Dianne Dodds (DUP)	88,346
Jim Nicholson (UUP)	82,893
Alban Maginness (SDLP)	78,489
Jim Allister (TUV)	66,197
Ian Parsley (Alliance)	26,699
Stephen Agnew (Green)	15,764

Counting began this morning in the North, because one doesn't count votes on the Sabbath there.

deBrún topped the poll, as expected (by everyone except the DUP who spent the entire campaign shouting about how they were the only one's who could stop this happening - as if it really matters).

Agnew and Parsley eliminated on Count 1. (Turns out there isn't a massive dsylexic DUP vote out there.)

Some had suggested the SDLP had a chance at sneaking in between the Unionists to take the second, but clearly that's not on given these numbers.

It'll be deBrún, Dodds and Nicholson.

Hehe - I have just added something similar about Norn Iron in the British thread....

[doktorb]

Even the most insane of transfers won't see Allister elected.... Or else....

[Јas]

Even the most insane of transfers won't see Allister elected.... Or else....

It should be fairly straight-forward from here.

Nicholson and Maginness should do best from the Alliance/Green transfers.

Then Allister should be eliminated. I suspect the majority going to the UUP and the remainder to the DUP. Nicholson probably therefore to pass Dodds to get the 2nd seat; with Dodds comfortably ahead of Maginness.

[doktorb]

Even the most insane of transfers won't see Allister elected.... Or else....

It should be fairly straight-forward from here.

Nicholson and Maginness should do best from the Alliance/Green transfers.

Then Allister should be eliminated. I suspect the majority going to the UUP and the remainder to the DUP. Nicholson probably therefore to pass Dodds to get the 2nd seat; with Dodds comfortably ahead of Maginness.

From another forum (quoting another forum, I think maybe Slugger's blog)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Јas]

Even the most insane of transfers won't see Allister elected.... Or else....

It should be fairly straight-forward from here.

Nicholson and Maginness should do best from the Alliance/Green transfers.

Then Allister should be eliminated. I suspect the majority going to the UUP and the remainder to the DUP. Nicholson probably therefore to pass Dodds to get the 2nd seat; with Dodds comfortably ahead of Maginness.

From another forum (quoting another forum, I think maybe Slugger's blog)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'd tend to agree...
The significance of the numbers though it shows quite clearly just how strong the anti-Peace Agreement strand within Unionism. With these numbers, the TUV could well have a serious future in NI politics.

[doktorb]

"de Brun surplus:

Mick Fealty:  480 to TUV; 2914 DUP; 16325 SDLP; UCU 11392 Allister eliminated... Dodds still well short of the quota.. "

[Јas]

"de Brun surplus:

Mick Fealty:  480 to TUV; 2914 DUP; 16325 SDLP; UCU 11392 Allister eliminated... Dodds still well short of the quota.. "

Surely that's the Alliance/Green transfers - deBrún's surplus is only 5,040.
Anyway, the SDLP is doing somewhat better than I would've expected if this is the case, but it's nowhere near enough.

[doktorb]

"de Brun surplus:

Mick Fealty:  480 to TUV; 2914 DUP; 16325 SDLP; UCU 11392 Allister eliminated... Dodds still well short of the quota.. "

Surely that's the Alliance/Green transfers - deBrún's surplus is only 5,040.
Anyway, the SDLP is doing somewhat better than I would've expected if this is the case, but it's nowhere near enough.

Yeah, was gonna come back and amend - seems my Twitter feed wasn't as detailed as it should be !

[Јas]

City and County Councils:

862 of 883 seats declared

Fine Gael	331	(Won 293 seats in 2004)
Fianna Fáil	212	(302)
Labour	130	(101)
Sinn Féin	52	(54)
Greens	3	(18)
Ind/Other	134	(115)

Those Others include -
People Before Profit Alliance: 5
Socialist Party: 4
Workers Party: 2
South Kerry Independent Alliance: 1

Michael Lowry (Ind-Tipperary N), a overnment supporting Independent, has had a good local elections as 4 of his groupies have gotten elected to Tipp N County Council. Lowry claimed last night that he was thus bigger nationally than the Greens.

Jackie-Healy Rae (Ind-Kerry S), the other Government supporting Independent, also had a good day. His two sons retained their seats on Kerry County Council - both topping the poll in their respective areas.

Michael Fahy, formerly FF, and who faces retrial following the collapse of his fraud conviction, topped the poll in Loughrea to get a seat on Galway County Council.

Finally, a bit of research tells me that it was an excellent day for the ex-PDs. As the party is in the process of diss, obviously there were no official PD candidates anywhere but by my count at least 14 ex-PD councillors were elected this weekend, 9 as Independents, 4 as FG candidates and 1 as an FF candidate.
[Donal Lyons (Ind) Galway; Terry O'Flaherty (Ind) Galway; Declan McDonnell (Ind) Galway; Thomas Welby (Ind) Galway; Walter Lacey (Ind) Carlow; Brigid Teefy (Ind) Limerick; Eddie Fitzpatrick (Ind) Offaly; Paul Mitchell (Ind) Laois; Jim Cuddy (Ind) Galway; Michael Maher (FG) Galway; Rose Brennan (FG) Limerick; Mary Mitchell O'Connor (FG) Dún Laoighaire; Cáit Kean (FG) South Dublin; Mags Murray (FF) Fingal]