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Those of you who are also readers of our left-wing friends over at Ditch Media will no doubt have seen their latest planning “scandal” involving a Fine Gael candidate – Councillor Maeve O’Connell – securing works on her own home from a developer in part to settle a planning objection she had lodged.
As it happens, reviewing the story, I don’t find much in it to convince me that the Councillor in question did anything wrong. The development directly affected her own home, and the works appear to have been about minimising that impact. Nevertheless, no doubt people’s views on that issue will vary.
It’s an interesting story in the context of the Dublin Rathdown constituency, because this is one where Fine Gael really must be in contention for two seats if they are to have the kind of electoral triumph that Simon Harris dreams about. But securing those two seats might be harder than it looks.
Dublin Rathdown is one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country. It forms part of the south Dublin triangle of electoral privilege, alongside Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Bay South. Further, it has added a seat since 2020, and will now elect four TDs instead of three. Fine Gael took two seats last time, meaning that things would have to go very wrong for them on paper not to take two this time.
The runners and riders are as follows: Two of the three sitting TDs are seeking re-election, those being Minister Catherine Martin of the Greens and Junior Minister Neale Richmond of Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil is running Shay Brennan – son of Bertie-era Minister Seamus – and Elaine Dunne. The party managed a mere 12% here last time and will be hoping to improve that and snatch one of the four seats.
Fine Gael’s two-seat performance last time was a bit of a fluke, as the party polled just 31% across the constituency, which really shouldn’t have been enough for two seats in a three-seat constituency. Even in a four-seater, two seats should on paper be touch and go with that level of support, but the Fine Gaelers divided their vote almost perfectly last time and will aim to do the same again.
The Greens rocketed to the top of the polls here last time, with Catherine Martin taking 21% of the vote and cruising home. Few observers would expect her to repeat the feat this time, but holding this seat will be a top priority for the party.
This is where it gets interesting – if you simply extrapolated the results from last time to 2024, the most likely result would be 2 FG 1 FF 1 Green, which would be a clean sweep for the Government parties. This seems very unlikely indeed. One of them, almost certainly, will lose out. But to whom?
There are a few obvious challengers. First, and problematically for Fine Gael, former FG justice Minister Alan Shatter is contesting the election as an Independent. I’ll be honest, I don’t think he can win, because I don’t think he will be especially transfer friendly given his very publicly at-odds-with-the-consensus stance on the Israel/Palestine issue. But he will certainly pile up a respectable first preference vote, and likely at the expense of his former party more than others.
Second, there is Independent Councillor Michael Fleming, whose base in the south of the constituency is considerable and whom many smart observers are expecting to be in contention for a seat.
Those two independents are boosted further by the fact that Shane Ross is not standing this time, and the 8% of the voters who plumped for him last time are in play, and have a record of voting independent.
Then there’s the left: Sinn Fein, People before Profit, and Labour combined last time out for almost 23% of the votes, but did not manage a seat between them. Assume some of the Catherine Martin vote bleeds away from her to other parties of the left, and it’s likely there’s a seat there for one of the three. Unsuccessful EU election candidate Sinead Gibney is also running here for the Social Democrats, and will do well.
This is a constituency of very strong candidates that is likely to have both a strong vote for the establishment and a strong vote for the left. It is also a constituency where the votes are likely to fracture widely, and the final seats will be decided late on and on transfers.
My hunch is that Fianna Fáil might, yet again, lose out. And also that the second FG seat, while likely, is nowhere near safe. The bookies agree with me about FG, but not FF. They have Shay Brennan and Neale Richmond safe, with Michael Fleming, Catherine Martin, and Maeve O’Connell too close to call for the remaining two.
I’m not going to let that sway me, though. I’ll go with a narrow FG hold, and a surprise lack of an FF gain. I also think Catherine Martin holds on, based on transfers from Labour, the Soc Dems, and Sinn Fein.
Prediction: 2 FG, 1 Green, 1 IND (Fleming)
OVERALL RESULT: Ind GAIN (new seat)
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