Election 2024Constituency Profile

Dublin Mid-West constituency profile: Bellwether will show if voters are moving to anti-immigrant candidates

Election 2024: Sinn Féin hopeful of gaining two seats despite dwindling poll numbers

Dublin Mid West Constituency map
Election 2024: Labour's chances in the Dublin Mid-West constituency have been boosted by the inclusion of former independent Francis Timmons
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Jack Horgan-Jones
Thu Nov 07 2024 - 12:20

Outgoing TDs: Emer Higgins (FG), Gino Kenny (PBP), Eoin Ó Broin (SF), Mark Ward (SF)

Who are the Dublin Mid-West candidates? Deputy Eoin Ó Broin (SF), Deputy Mark Ward (SF), Deputy Emer Higgins (FG), deputy Gino Kenny (PBP), Cllr Paul Gogarty (Ind), Cllr Vicki Casserly (FG), Cllr Francis Timmons (Lab), Cllr Eoin Ó Broin (SD), Cllr Shane Moynihan (FF), Cllr Linda de Courcy (II), Cllr Glen Moore (IFP), Lynda Prendergast (FF), Karla Doran (GP), Colm Quinn (Aon), Robert Coyle (TIP)

This will be a bellwether constituency – as it often has been. In the boom, it elected Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats; after the crash, Labour and Fine Gael, before shifting further left recently.

Dublin Mid-West was the laboratory for Sinn Féin’s previous electoral success, winning a second seat in the 2019 byelection and retaining both Mark Ward and Eoin Ó Broin in 2020. It was expected the party would run three candidates here, but amid dwindling poll numbers, that is not likely.

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Sinn Féin won more than 40 per cent of the vote in 2020. That’s a good starting point, but it has to get its strategy right in Ó Broin’s backyard – it ran way too many candidates in the local election here and underwhelmed.

Watch how two councillors who campaigned strongly on immigration – Linda de Courcy of Independent Ireland and Glen Moore of the Irish Freedom Party – fare in this diverse area, which is host to migrant accommodation centres. The vote here may be telling of whether voter preferences are shifting enough to elect those centrally campaigning on migration or culture-war issues, or if they struggle to establish themselves in national politics.

In the former stamping ground of Frances Fitzgerald, there are enough Fine Gael votes to elect Emer Higgins, who now has a running mate, indicating the party thinks it could even gain the extra seat on offer here. Gino Kenny will benefit from the addition of Tallaght-Fettercairn from Dublin South-West, and the extra seat also helps him stay in the mix.

If there’s a bolter for one of the last seats, former Green TD and now Independent candidate Paul Gogarty could pip other Independents, smaller parties and Fianna Fáil – which is likely to poll respectably but must find transfers to truly come into the reckoning. Former Independent Francis Timmons has signed up with Labour, which boosts the party’s (slim enough) chances, if he can merge his Independent vote with the old Joanna Tuffy vote.

The addition of an extra seat should favour incumbents. Tallaght-Fettercairn is a substantial addition but joining part of Clondalkin-Monastery to the constituency is unlikely to move the dial, as it is largely industrial buildings. The population will be in the region of 142,000. As defined by its old boundaries, Dublin Mid-West is a fast-growing area that displays higher levels of black, black Irish, Asian or Asian Irish ethnicities than the national average.

Possible outcome: Fine Gael (1), Sinn Féin (1), People Before Profit – Solidarity (1), Independent (1)