Main Points
- According to tallies, Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats looks set to top the poll in the Dublin Central byelection
- The race is expected to come down to a battle between Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan and Ennis
- Results are expected by early evening as Fianna Fáil may face their worst ever election performance with their candidate John Stephens tallying just 4.1 per cent of the vote
- Dublin Central count: Full byelection results data
- Click for live coverage of the Galway West byelection count
Key Reads
- What are voters’ five big issues in Dublin Central and Galway West byelections?
- In the News podcast: Who will win the Dublin Central and Galway West byelections?
- Polymarket betting on Dublin Central byelection to be examined by officials
- Opinion: We finally know how much money shapes Irish elections
- All Irish Times polling coverage and data, including the most pressing issues for voters, can be accessed here
O’Dea says she is ‘satisfied’ with byelection performance
Labour’s candidate Ruth O’Dea has said she is “satisfied” with her performance in the Dublin Central race and suggested a formal transfer pact between parties on the left should be considered going forward.
She said there was a “strong message being sent to the Government that they’re not delivering”.
She said parties on the left “are stronger together than we are apart, and we need to unite more, definitely.”
“If we do that, like we did on the [President Catherine] Connolly campaign, we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
Asked if this should extend to a formal transfer pact she said; “There’s a case for it, absolutely”.
Sherlock, said she took “great hope” from the result in Dublin Central and extended her congratulations to Daniel Ennis, the Social Democrats councillor who looks highly likely to take the seat.
Dublin Central front-runner Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats has arrived at the byelection count centre in the RDS.
Electoral predictions of Hutch have not panned out, says Sherlock
Predictions of veteran criminal and independent candidate Gerry Hutch being an “electoral force to be reckoned with” have not panned out, Labour’s sitting TD for Dublin Central has said.
More from Jack Horgan-Jones: Speaking at the RDS count centre on Saturday, Marie Sherlock said the Hutch vote had “slipped” amid signs that his first preference vote is likely to decline from the 2024 general election – although he seems likely to grow his share of the first preference vote based on tallies from earlier in the day.
“We heard a lot about Gerard Hutch during the election, we have seen that his vote has slipped and I think that speaks volumes about peoples’ faith in Gerard Hutch being that positive progressive voice for Dublin Central.”
“This playing up of him as a major electoral force to be reckoned with has not proved correct today.”
Sherlock reeled Hutch in during a close count in the race to fill the fourth seat in Dublin Central in the general election of 2024.
She said Independent councillor Malachy Steenson’s increased vote is “no surprise”.
“We have seen how the far right have tried to divide, have tried to sow bitterness and resentment on the ground,” she said.
“In other parties on the left, some parties, not all, across the left, we are doing our absolute utmost to ensure that we bring that positive vision to people,” she said, arguing that people can be brought around by the argument that “it is the Government failing them, not migrants”.
Listen: Ennis and Kyne in poll position on a bad day for big parties
A picture is emerging in the byelection counts. Hugh is joined on the latest Inside Politics podcast by Pat Leahy, Harry McGee and Jack Horgan-Jones to discuss what we have learned so far.
Ennis and Kyne in poll position on a bad day for big parties
Martin’s leadership ‘absolutely not’ in question, says O’Brien
Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s leadership of Fianna Fáil is “absolutely not” in question after disappointing showings in byelection tallies, especially in Dublin Central, Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien has said.
More from Jack Horgan-Jones in the RDS: O’Brien dismissed questions about Martin’s future, saying: “Since after the 2020 general election I was asked would Micheál lead us into the general election ... Not only did he do that he came back returned as Taoiseach, with the largest party in Dáil Éireann.”
O’Brien said he wouldn’t try to “sugarcoat” the party’s result in the race to fill the seat vacated by his former cabinet colleague Paschal Donohoe, with Fianna Fáil candidate John Stephens set to finish well adrift of the leaders as tallies place him on only slightly more than 4 per cent of the vote.
“We knew the challenge that we would have in this constituency, we’ve one councillor, we haven’t won a Dáil seat here since 2007 – that means we’ll redouble our efforts to rebuild on the ground in Dublin Central,” he said.
“The result, I’m not going to sugar coat it, of course we’re disappointed with the vote, that’s nothing to do with our candidate
“It was potentially down to the fact that the groundwork potentially over the course of the last number of years hasn’t been as it should have been.”
Asked whether he would one day like to lead Fianna Fáil, O’Brien sidestepped the question saying he didn’t deal in hypotheticals and was focused on his work as a minister.
“We’ve a job of work to do, we’ve about 3½ years remaining in this Government’s term, to deliver across housing, to deliver across jobs, health and education, the areas we’re focused on,” he said.
‘Work needs to be done’, says Fianna Fáil’s O’Brien
Minister for Transport and Fianna Fáil director of elections Darragh O’Brien has been speaking to the media in the RDS.
‘Today isn’t our day’, says McDonald
Over in the west, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald told the media “today isn’t our day” in the Galway West byelection.
Horner: ‘We have to focus on the positive’
Green candidate and councillor Janet Horner expressed her frustration about the media focus on Independent candidate Gerry Hutch and the view that created of Dublin Central as a constituency.
From Marie O’Halloran in the count centre: Arriving to applause from her colleagues at the RDS count she said the party had shown a strong performance because “people wanted to see Greens strongly represent this constituency again”. Sitting Green TD Neasa Houricane lost her seat in the 2024 general election, as did all bar party leader Roderic O’Gorman.
The party may not have made it this time but would be working hard for a seat next time, she said. In the final tally Horner came in just 0.1 per cent behind Hutch, who was on 11.7 per cent.
Horner said: “The frustration I’ve had from the outset and since the 2024 general election is how much the narrative [has been] around Hutch. That’s been behind this idea of what Dublin Central is and this had led the media conversation.
“So, for the most part I tried really hard not to let him set the tone of the conversation of what we were talking to people about.”
She added: “But the electorate need to hear from time to time that there is a strong and firm rejection of the type of divisive politics that comes from the candidate.
Horner said she “stepped up” and “firmly rejected the type of politics that has been offered by people who had been capitalising on a deep and reasonable and rational frustration that so many people have”.
She said those people tried “to capitalise on that to drive further division and to promote their own political career but not actually offering any action”.
It showed and was perpetuating a “narrow stereotype” of a “wonderful, vibrant Dublin Central”.
It was “necessary not to let the most negative figures in every particular election drive the narrative”.
“We have to focus on the positive. We have to deal with the real issues in our community and positively engage,” she said, instead of “just with anger”.
‘I tried not to let Hutch set the tone’
‘We’ve had a really good day’: Green Party candidate Janet Horner said in the RDS with regard to her byelection campaign in Dublin Central.
More candidates have been arriving at the Dublin Central count centre in the RDS including the Green Party’s Janet Horner and People Before Profit’s Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin.
Dublin Central counting second preference votes
Tally counters are looking at second-preference votes in Dublin Central.
From Marie O’Halloran in the RDS: A sample of 250 of Gerry Hutch’s ballots showed 47 per cent going to Sinn Féin candidate Janice Boylan, 15.6 per cent going to the Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis and 38 per cent non-transferable.
Based on that tally, says one Sinn Féin analyst, “the final destination between Ennis and Boylan would effectively favour Boylan by about 900 votes”.
Looking out to the final count, when Sinn Féin expects Hutch to be the last candidate eliminated, Ennis needs to be about 1,000 votes ahead. If the gap were smaller than 900, Boylan would win but based on the first tally the Social Democrats are already about 500 votes ahead.
Ennis is expected to keep getting more votes through transfers as the lower candidates are excluded and the Sinn Féin tally expert reckons Ennis’s lead will be above 1,000.
A Social Democrats tallyman looking at Boylan’s second preferences noted a big change from previous elections. Previously many Sinn Féin voters voted 1, 2 for their candidates and mostly stopped after that, he said.
This time around they are voting farther down the ballot paper and transferring. Based on one sample of about 200 ballots – but this was only one sample – the second places favoured Ennis, followed by Hutch, then the Green’s Janet Horner and People Before Profit’s Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin.
Steenson doubles share of vote from 2024
Cllr Malachy Steenson has arrived at the Dublin Central count centre in the RDS.
The anti-immigrant Independent expressed frustrations around the media and the coverage of fellow candidate Gerry Hutch.
Earlier this afternoon, Steenson’s share of the vote had almost doubled since 2024. He was sitting on 9.5 per cent in the tally, up from 4.89 per cent two years ago.
Ennis emerging as victor in battleground areas
The tally data has been crunched by the folks over at Ireland Votes.
From the Jack Horgan-Jones: Looking at the ward-level data, there’s a really clear picture emerging of Ennis prevailing anywhere that might have been a battleground, with Hutch storming the northeast inner city, where Steenson also polled well.
In the areas around the Rotunda and Temple Street Hospitals, taking in the stretch east of O’Connell Street and down to the Liffey, Hutch beat Boylan at a canter, taking in more than 40 per cent of the first-preference vote tallied in North Dock C, for example, where he and Steenson shared almost 65 per cent of ballots tallied. It was a similar story in Mountjoy A, where the Sean McDermott Street flats are – they took more than 70 per cent combined here.
Sinn Féin are only prevailing in the tallies in the western part of the inner city, coming out on top in Inns Quay C and Aran Quay C, which take in Smithfield and the areas around it.
But in the rapidly gentrifying inner suburbs around Oxmantown, Grangegorman and Stoneybatter, it all swung towards Ennis – with Boylan prevailing only in Arran Quay D, which is home to O’Devaney Gardens, where she originally comes from.
Boylan also took all of Cabra West, and a slice of Cabra East which neighbours Mary Lou McDonald’s constituency office – but apart from that the map turns almost completely purple: Cabra East A, which takes in large swathes of Phibsborough and the housing estates to the west of Glasnevin cemetery, swung heavily for Ennis, the Greens’ Janet Horner and Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam.
And as you continue around that arc of the more middle-class areas of Glasnevin and Drumcondra, it is Ennis all the way. In the tally data, he’s also prevailing in Ballybough and East Wall.
A pocket of the inner suburbs is given over to Janet Horner, who eclipsed Ennis in the tally in Inns Quay A – which takes in the areas around the Mater hospital, edging up towards Phibsborough.
Dublin Central at a glance
Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones reports from the RDS, where, according to tallies, Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats looks set to top the poll in the Dublin Central byelection.
Video: Enda O’Dowd
Social Democrat Daniel Ennis likely to top poll, according to tally
We have a full tally in Dublin Central – and on these numbers, there looks to be a clear winner – Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats, reports Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones.
Dublin city councillor Ennis looks like topping the poll, a major victory for the party, which was expected to poll strongly – but not to eclipse Sinn Féin’s candidate Janice Boylan in the home constituency of that party’s leader Mary Lou McDonald.
The final tally has Ennis on 19.5 per cent of first-preference votes, ahead of Boylan on 17.8 per cent.
Anything less than a seismic upset would see the seat going to Ennis if the count reflects the unofficial tally undertaken by the combined parties in the RDS.
He is expected to be a transfer magnet to the extent that he would have probably overhauled Boylan unless she had a massive lead. If he’s out in front and transfers from the other left parties pan out as expected, then it’s all over bar the shouting in the race for Paschal Donohoe’s former seat.
On these numbers, Boylan will underperform the Sinn Féin 2024 performance badly, when the party took 23.34 per cent of first-preference votes between Boylan and party leader Mary Lou McDonald.
That, obviously, would be very bad news for McDonald, who will doubtlessly face renewed scrutiny of her record after failing to deliver in her own back yard.
It looks to be a disappointing day for the Government parties, with John Stephens tallying at just 4.2 per cent of the vote – veering towards the catastrophic. Micheál Martin will probably point to previous underwhelming byelection results that did not presage a wider collapse for his party – such as Dublin Bay South in 2021 – but it’s a bad day for Fianna Fáil.
As for Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam, the putative successor to Donohoe, he is on 10.7 per cent of the completed tally, down significantly on the 16.77 per cent the former minister for finance garnered in 2024. If this pans out, it looks like he will be beaten into fifth place.
One of those outperforming McAdam in the tally is the Green Party candidate Janet Horner, who has put in a really strong showing amounting to a mini-resurgence for the party – she’s on 11.5 per cent of the final tally. The Green candidate in 2024, Neasa Hourigan, got just under 6 per cent of the first-preference vote.
Outside of the fight for the seat itself, the main talking point has to be the strength of the combined vote for veteran criminal Gerry Hutch and Independent anti-immigration councillor Malachy Steenson.
The pair polled a combined 14.35 per cent of first-preference votes in 2024. With all boxes tallied, Hutch is in fourth place on 11.4 per cent (2024: 9.46 per cent), with the tally suggesting Steenson has significantly grown his 2024 vote. He’s sitting on 9.5 per cent in the tally (2024: 4.89 per cent).
The centre left may win the seat, but the anti-establishment energy on the right in Dublin Central is swelling – and it looks to be pulling support from Sinn Féin, while the party is also probably bleeding support on the left.
Daniel Ennis front-runner in Dublin while it looks like a long count set for Galway
There’s hardly enough space on the page for the number of caveats that you’d need to include at this stage – boxes only just open, incomplete tallies, first count hours away, and so on, and so on, writes Political Editor Pat Leahy.
But going on the limited information that we have at this stage it is possible to say one thing about each of the byelections counts under way in Dublin and Galway.
In Dublin, expectations that the front-runner would be the Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis are being borne out as the boxes are opened in the RDS.
Some of the partial tallies so far have Ennis even topping the poll, though others have the Sinn Féin candidate Janice Boylan ahead. However, Boylan needs to beat Ennis by a lot on the first count to stay ahead of him when transfers come in on the later counts – and so far, there is no sign of that happening.
We will know a lot more by lunchtime, but that is the picture that has emerged in the first couple of hours.
In Galway, with about a quarter of the boxes tallied at the time of writing, the picture is a lot more complicated. It looks like a three-horse – or perhaps even four-horse – race.
Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne and Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas are out ahead of everyone else. But there is a lot of left-wing votes to be transferred in the later counts and it looks like Labour’s Helen Ogbu will be the leading candidate of the left and so best placed to get them.
If that left-wing vote stays largely together, it will push her up towards the two leaders in the later counts. She needs to stay ahead of the Independent Mike Cubbard, who is showing strongly in the early stage. But it’s possible to see a path to the seat for Ogbu even at this early stage.
Either way, Galway looks like being a long count, almost certainly running into tomorrow. Dublin, at this stage, looks more straightforward. But all those health warnings apply.
The deputy leader of the Social Democrats and Dublin Bay North TD Cian O’Callaghan has said the party is “hopeful” their candidate Daniel Ennis will top the poll in Dublin Central.
Virgin Media’s political correspondent Gavan Reilly has built a spreadsheet that compares the exact boxes from the 2024 general election with those being tallied in the RDS.
Why does that matter, you ask?
Well, tally data is great – but it suffers from a bit of a geographical bias in real time as we can’t tell to a high degree of certainty which polling centres are feeding into the live tally, so it could be heavily weighted towards areas where a particular candidate is strong or weak. This makes it harder to infer a complete picture until the tally is complete.
But if you compare the same boxes today with those from 2024, you can see how a candidate is performing against the relevant indicator from last time out.
Our own Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones writes that, as at 9.50am, Gavan’s spreadsheet shows Sinn Féin is struggling to match its 2024 showing, currently running some seven points off the combined Boylan/McDonald vote in 2024, while Daniel Ennis is slightly overperforming Gary Gannon’s totals for the same boxes in the general election.
This only tells us first preferences, but we fully expect Ennis to be more transfer-friendly than Boylan. On these numbers, they’ll be tightly bunched at the top, which spells trouble for Sinn Féin.
A couple of other talking points:
The Hutch vote is growing, but on these numbers, only a little. The growth for Steenson, the anti-immigration councillor, is more pronounced.
As it stands, Ray McAdam is down on Paschal Donohoe’s vote – but that’s to be expected.
John Stephens (Fianna Fáil) is nowhere.
Janet Horner (Green Party) is, as it stands, improving significantly on the 2024 showing.
Even by the time you read this, this picture will have changed – but these are interesting straws in the wind.
Kevin Humphries, the former Labour TD famed for his powers of prediction at the count centre, is bravely already calling Dublin Central for Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats.
With counting under way, Humphries told The Irish Times: “It’s over, Ennis has it”, predicting that Janice Boylan (Sinn Féin) would top the poll by about three points – but that she would need four to five points of a gap to stay ahead of Ennis, who is predicted to be this contest’s transfer magnet.
Boxes have been officially opened at the RDS. Let the fun begin!
Boxes due to be opened imminently at the RDS.
The race is expected to come down to a battle between Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan and the Social Democrats Daniel Ennis, based on our polling (the usual health warnings apply – higher margin of error and the fact that we’ve had some campaigning between now and then).
Everyone will also be watching out for how veteran criminal Gerry Hutch gets on – can he build on his 2024 figure?
Here’s our full polling results.
Talking to one person in the Social Democrats late last night, their feeling was that the leafier suburbs of Glasnevin and Drumcondra doing well on turnout was promising, and the lower inner city turnout may hurt Hutch – while Cabra West going well on turnout was good for Sinn Féin.
But with a lower turnout, it also matters how much it’s down and where – this could make a really important difference.
Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones says these are the things he will be watching out for:
Hutch and Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin are likely to struggle for transfers relative to Ennis, so they need their heartlands, like around Cabra, to turn out strongly – and for a strong showing in the inner city.
Signs of them matching or exceeding Mary Lou McDonald’s 2024 percentages in these boxes will indicate if Sinn Féin’s “get out the vote” effort has succeeded or struggled.
It’s a similar story for Hutch: how is he performing against Sinn Féin in these areas? Is he building his 2024 vote? Is the gap to Sinn Féin bigger or smaller? Has he managed to mobilise his vote?
This also matters for the larger party, whose anti-establishment vote is vulnerable to any Hutch surge (true to a lesser extent for Malachy Steenson, the Independent anti-immigration councillor running in the election).
Fine Gael and Ennis
If Daniel Ennis outperforms the rest of the left (Labour, Green Party and People Before Profit) as is expected, an interesting question is how he performs relative to Fine Gael’s Ray McAdam in the likes of Drumcondra, Phibsborough and Glasnevin – places where Paschal Donohoe pulled in a lot of his vote. But the sitting TD for the Social Democrats, Gary Gannon, also builds a vote here.
So, is Ennis matching or even outperforming McAdam, who is expected to do okay but not come into the final reckoning? This will be a bellwether.
How far can Fianna Fáil fall?
John Stephens, the Fianna Fáil candidate, is not expected to do well in a constituency where the party hasn’t won a seat since Bertie Ahern’s era. But just how will he get on? And what will that mean for the rumblings of discontent in Fianna Fáil about Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s leadership?
What happens next?
Once the votes start being counted, we’re expected the parties to run a combined effort to tally votes (an unofficial but pretty reliable count) – so early snaps of individual tally sheets in the RDS will be overtaken by data from that as it’s built out.
We had a 100 per cent tally in 2024 around 12.30pm, that’s going to be a pretty reliable indication of how the first count will shake out, which will come a little while after that.
We’ll keep you up to date throughout the day on this live story, and the results as they come in will be available here.
Good morning – it’s count day in Dublin Central and Galway West. In the capital, boxes will be opened from about 9am at the RDS in Ballsbridge in the race to fill the seat vacated by former Fine Gael minister Paschal Donohoe.
Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones has been looking at what we should be watching out for in the very early stages of the count.
The official turnout estimate for Dublin Central is the first bit of data we have, he writes. Across five polling stations, here are the figures from the returning officer last night:
St. Paul’s CBS, 25 per cent: Seán O’Casey, 37.5 per cent; St Finbarr’s NS, 48.6 per cent; Deaf Village, 40.3 per cent; Glasnevin NS, 46 per cent.
Average turnout: 39.48 per cent.
So, turnout is down on the 2024 general election figure of 52.27 per cent. This is to be expected – turnout is almost always lower in byelections than in general elections. It also looks to be down on the last byelection held in the constituency in 2009, when turnout was 46.3 per cent.
What counts as good and what counts as bad? We’ll turn to the ever-reliable Adrian Kavanagh for a quick look:
The picture is slightly complicated by the fact the Electoral Commission has been hard at work cleaning up the Electoral Register, while there’s also been a slew of new voter registrations.
You can read a bit more about this here.
