Candidates in the 2011 Irish general election
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A general election took place in Ireland on 25 February 2011 to elect the 31st Dáil. The closing date for nominations was 9 February 2011. A record 566 candidates put themselves forward, nearly a hundred more than in 2007, driven by a surge in the number of independents from 90 to 202.[1] There was an average of thirteen names on the ballot in each constituency, while Wicklow had the most with twenty-four.[2] 86 women contested the election, a numerical increase on 2007 but a decline in percentage terms. Four constituencies had no female candidate.[3] Sixty-eight people under the age of thirty-five stood for election; the two youngest were both twenty-one. The oldest candidate, Ian McGarvey, was eighty-one years old.[4]
Individuals from commercial and farming backgrounds were more likely to stand for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, while teaching and the legal profession were over-represented on Labour tickets. There was a marked increase in the number of people with business experience standing as independents at this election.[4] Parties considered a wide range of characteristics when selecting candidates, including age, gender, career, geography and the strategies of other parties. By the time the election was called, selections were at an advanced stage, as the government had not been expected to last a full term. In 2007, the major parties had recruited a large number of personalities from the sporting world, including Graham Geraghty for Fine Gael and John O'Leary for Fianna Fáil. This time, however, there were far fewer recruits from outside politics, an outcome attributed to the failure of journalist George Lee's career as a Fine Gael TD.[5]
Fianna Fáil stood 75 candidates, thirty-one fewer than 2007 and three fewer than the number of seats it had won at the last election. In four constituencies – Cavan–Monaghan, Cork North-West, Dublin North-West, and Dublin South-Central – the party nominated fewer candidates than it had outgoing TDs, effectively conceding a seat in each.[6] A large number of Fianna Fáil members, including major vote-getters like Bertie Ahern, Noel Dempsey and Dermot Ahern, retired from politics at this election.[7] The party's organisation was in disarray in late 2010 and early 2011 and the leadership had less control over selections than usual.[8] Retirements helped Fianna Fáil reduce the size of its tickets to more competitive levels, but local organisations often selected more candidates than advised. The party ran two ministers, Barry Andrews and Mary Hanafin, in Dún Laoghaire, despite regarding only one seat as winnable and fearing two candidates would split the vote. The leadership had pressured Andrews or Hanafin to move to neighbouring Dublin South, where the party had no incumbent on the ticket, but both refused.[9] The selection of the former Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue in Kerry South resulted in Tom Fleming resigning from Fianna Fáil and standing as an independent.[8]
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Fine Gael stood 104 candidates, up thirteen on 2007; they were the only party to run enough to win a Dáil majority. Phil Hogan and Frank Flannery were responsible for the party's selection process, which was centralised and tightly controlled. Pádraic McCormack lost his selection convention in Galway West to Brian Walsh and Fidelma Healy Eames and retired from politics. Party headquarters intervened to ensure the selection of a number of former Progressive Democrats to Fine Gael tickets, including Mary Mitchell O'Connor, Cáit Keane and Ciarán Cannon, who were seen as unlikely to win a vote of members.[10] Fine Gael engaged in strict vote management in some areas. In Enda Kenny's constituency of Mayo the party sought to win four seats and carefully apportioned territory among its candidates.[11] In some parts of Dublin electors were sent vote-management instruction letters signed by Kenny and Hogan.[12]
Labour stood 68 candidates, eighteen more than in 2007, and all but one of its outgoing TDs had a running mate.[13] The party's selection strategy was influenced by its experience at the 1992 election, when it was perceived to have stood too few candidates to take advantage of a spike in support. Labour recruited a number of independent politicians to stand at the election, including Michael McNamara, Jerry Cowley and Mae Sexton, a former Progressive Democrat.[14] The defeat of Rebecca Moynihan by three men in the selection vote for Dublin South-Central and 31-year-old Cian O'Callaghan by two older candidates in Dublin North-East generated outcry within the party.[14] In Sligo–North Leitrim, the selection of journalist Susan O'Keeffe as Labour candidate resulted in councillor Veronica Cawley resigning from the party and standing as an independent.[15] Two defeated candidates quit the Labour Party in Laois–Offaly: one stood as an independent and another for the United Left Alliance.[16]
The Green Party stood 43 candidates, one in each constituency. Despite poor polling over its time in government, the party believed it was important to stand everywhere, both for symbolic reasons and to improve the party's chances of getting the 2 per cent national vote needed to qualify for public funding. In contrast to the deluge of Fianna Fáil retirements, all six outgoing Green TDs contested the election.[17]
Sinn Féin stood 41 candidates. In November 2010, party president Gerry Adams announced he would resign from the House of Commons and the Northern Ireland Assembly to contest the Dáil election in Louth, where Arthur Morgan was retiring.[18] Adams' venture into southern politics, combined with Pearse Doherty's by-election win the same month, boosted the party's organisation and contributed to a sense that Sinn Féin now had a sharper and more anti-establishment image.[19]
Independents and new groupings
During the economic crisis, there was much discussion of the need for a new party, motivated by the perceived failure of the established political forces. The circumstances were arguably similar to the mid-1980s, when the Progressive Democrats had been founded, and in 2010 a Sunday Independent poll suggested that a majority believed a new party was required.[20] One new group, Libertas, founded by businessman Declan Ganley, had played a major role in the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty referendum in 2008, but disappointing results at the 2009 European elections precipitated its demise.[21] Writing in 2012, the academic Liam Weeks observed that while Ireland had fewer political parties than other European countries of its size during the crisis period, Irish voters had a long history of spurning new options, especially those not formed from splits or mergers of existing groups.[22]
A number of public figures, including journalists Fintan O'Toole, David McWilliams and Eamon Dunphy, discussed forming a loose alliance called "Democracy Now". They intended to reform the political system and replace the IMF bailout agreement with a structured debt default. Although the group was reported to have €400,000 to fund an election campaign, the collapse of the government at the end of 2010 did not give it enough time to prepare.[2][23] In late January 2011, O'Toole wrote that "the risk of going off half-cocked seemed to outweigh the hope of making a difference".[24] Some individuals associated with the group, including Finian McGrath and Catherine Murphy, stood as independents at the election.[2] New Vision, a separate alliance of independents created by Eamonn Blaney with similar views to Democracy Now, fielded twenty candidates, among them Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, Sharon Keogan and John McGuirk.[25]
A number of small left-wing parties joined forces to create the United Left Alliance (ULA) in November 2010. It stood twenty candidates. The group consisted of People Before Profit, the Socialist Party, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group, as well as some former Labour Party members. Three of its candidates, Declan Bree, Joe Higgins and Séamus Healy, were former TDs. The ULA opposed the EU–IMF deal and the government's austerity policies, advocating heavy taxes on the wealthy and a general strike. It failed to register in time to get its name on the ballot.[26] Also on the left, Fís Nua, a new party including several former Green Party members opposed to coalition, stood six candidates.[27]
The public debate over the lack of experts in Irish politics may have contributed to an increased number of independents with economic and financial credentials standing at the election, including Shane Ross, Stephen Donnelly, and Paul Sommerville.[28] Mick Wallace, a property developer, left-wing activist and the founder of Wexford Youths F.C., announced on television three weeks before the election that he would contest Wexford as an independent, saying "I cannot promise to deliver anything" when asked for his platform.[29] Other high-profile independents were former members of parties, including Mattie McGrath (Fianna Fáil), John Halligan (Workers' Party), Noel Grealish (Progressive Democrats) and Thomas Pringle (Sinn Féin).[30]
List of parties
Candidates
The table below lists all of the nominated candidates. Elected candidates are shown in bold text.
^ *: Outgoing TD
^ #: Member of the 23rd Seanad
^ §: Returned automatically without standing for election as outgoing Ceann Comhairle, in accordance with Article 16.6 of the Constitution of Ireland.