Dublin Euro Election, post mortem

The voters of Dublin have chosen Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael), Proinsias De Rossa (Labour) and Joe Higgins (Socialist Party) as their three new MEP’s on June 5th.  The media has been full of comment of winners and losers, victors and vanquished, the disappointed and forlorn.  Her is my perspective on the outcome in the Dublin Euro constituency:

 

	2004 Election	% Share of Poll	2009 Election	% Share of Poll
Electorate	821,723		812,465
Valid Poll	421,897		406,630
Quota	84,380		101,658
Fine Gael Mitchell	90,749	22%	96,715	24%
Fianna Fail Ryan Brady Byrne	61,681 36,269	13% 9%	55,346 18,956	14% 5%
Labour De Rossa Bacik	54,344 40,707	13% 10%	83,471	21%
Green McKenna deBurca	40,445	9%	19,086	5%
Socialist Higgins	23,218	6%	50,510	12%
Sinn Fein McDonald	60,395	14%	47,928	12%
Libertas Simons			13,514	3%
Independents McKenna Sweeney Despard Price Prenderville Doonan	5,352 4,813 2,071 1,853	2% 1% <1% <1%	17,521 3,583	4% 1%

 

Fine Gael

I speculated that if Mitchell obtained 100,000 votes that would be a real breakthrough in Dublin because they never surpassed 90,000 votes heretofore and are poorly organised and poorly represented in several parliamentary constituencies.  This election marks real progress.  Fine Gael now has 334 council seats throughout Ireland and 12 on Dublin City Council, a gain of 2.

Fianna Fail

A drop from 22% to 18% and a rout in the local elections and two by-elections is the reflection of a very angry electorate, many suffering severely as a consequence of the economic downturn and poor government economic management.  Ryan is a well respected politician but he bore the ire of the voters.  His running mate is completing a very successful year as Lord Mayor of Dublin. The number of councillors in Dublin has dropped from 12 to 6 and by over  100 throughout the country to 213.

Labour

Great strides in the local elections cannot mask a 2% drop in Euro support but De Rossa did well as a solo candidate.  While he has service in the European Parliament since 1989 he is not universally known throughout the county.  Labour captured a third of the Dublin city vote in the local elections and are the largest party in Dublin City Council with 19 seats.

Greens

They are suffering the consequences of being a coalition partner in a thoroughly unpopular government and also lost all of its 9 council seats in Dublin. 

Sinn Fein

The 2004 vote was a high watermark that was not sustainable in 2009. They lost 3 of their 10 seats on Dublin City Council.

Socialist Party

Higgins more than doubled his vote but is this surprising when the Live Register exceeds 400,000?  He is regarded as being very committed to his particular perspective.

Libertas

Rejected by the electorate following an anaemic campaign by Simons.  The upstart organization had a substantial seat target across Europe but managed to have only one outgoing French MEP re-elected.  Its tears for the great vision.

Independents

McKenna’s star is on the wane and she is jaded.  The promise she presented as a Green Party candidate failed to inspire.