Main Points
- As the count in Election 2024 enters day three, 162 TDs out of 174 have been elected and counting is completed in 39 constituencies out of 43. Fianna Fáil currently have the most seats, followed by Fine Gael and Sinn Féin
- Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has lost his Dáil seat after being eliminated in Wicklow in the early hours of Monday, the Government’s most high-profile casualty of the election.
- Counting is to resume in Louth, Cavan-Monaghan, Kildare North, with recounts also due in Tipperary North and Cork North-Central
- Results hub: See the live results for all 43 constituencies
Is the new soft left block ready for government, asks Jack Horgan Jones.
We have a notion now as to what is happening in Cork North Central although anyone hoping for a quick conclusion to the count is likely to be wildly disappointed.
First there is going to be a check of a bundle of a thousand votes to see if any were misplaced.
That recheck will take until lunchtime and then another decision will be made. If a full recount goes ahead it will take a number of days due to reduced staff numbers.
As the dust settles on the 2024 general election it’s clear that the picture [for Sinn Féin] is not quite as rosy as the scenes in the RDS might suggest, writes Jennifer Bray.
Labour’s Eoghan Kenny – who is waiting on a recount today to see if his victory for the last seat in Cork North-Central is confirmed – featured in The Irish Times when as a Leaving Cert student at the Patrician Academy in Mallow, he wrote to then minister for education Joe McHugh questioning the delay in providing a new school building
A future minister for education at some stage down the road, perhaps, if he makes it to Dáil Éireann, suggests our man on the ground Barry Roche.
Jennifer Whitmore of the Social Democrats, speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, said she is “really, really pleased” with the result for the party.
Deputy Whitmore added: “Our TDs will have to meet but we’ve been very, very clear from the starting point, in that, we are keen to go into government as long as we can achieve a number of red lines that we set out very early on. (These) cover areas such as health; the area of disabilities which just hasn’t had a government focus to date, which is non-negotiable (for us); climate change; childcare and indeed housing.”
The Wicklow TD said they will “talk to everybody and we’ve said that all along” when it comes to negotiating with other parties on forming a coalition government.
“It’s important that we set out our stall, we obviously need to hear what the other parties would like to achieve if they were to be in government. It’s really important to have these discussions.”
The deputy said she is delighted to see there is a “focus on the left” as it has “increased its share and its mandate” but “I’m not going to pre-empt discussions.”
As focus turns to coalition talks about talks, one of the youngest newly elected TDs, an Independent, gave an initial response late last night to possible government participation, writes Marie O’Halloran.
Dublin Bay North Independent Barry Heneghan (26), asked if he would go into hovernment with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, said “we’ll discuss this with the kitchen Cabinet”. He is a protege of former Independent TD Finian McGrath who served as a minister of state in the 2016 to 2020 coalition.
Mr Heneghan, part of the “locked-out” generation of young people caught by rising rents and house prices, currently lives at home with his parents.
He told reporters when declared elected just before 1am: “I think people want an independent young voice to represent them in the Dáil and that’s exactly what I’m going to do”. He said voters “have put their trust in me. I won’t let you down and I’ll do my best, starting from tomorrow”.
The Labour leader Ivana Bacik has said that she will only speak to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael about government as part of a broader left platform with the Social Democrats and other left-wing parties.
“We are serious about delivering change,” Ms Bacik told RTE’s Morning Ireland, reiterating her intention to talk to other centre-left parties to form a common platform ahead of any negotiations about government with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Asked if she was prepared to negotiate on her own if the Social Democrats refused to join talks about government, she said that “we are absolutely not prepared to do that at this stage.”
However, Ms Bacik said that it was “not healthy for democracy for parties to sit in perpetual opposition” and said that left-wing parties should talk to one another about government.
The final two seats in Donegal were taken by the 100% Redress candidate Charles Ward and outgoing Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue. Both were elected on count 16 with sitting Independent TD Thomas Pringle losing out on the last seat.
It is worth noting that while a government made up of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is not the most likely outcome of the general election, the big winners are the Labour Party and the Social Democrats which will both be returning to Leinster House as considerably stronger forces. The Green Party – which will have only one seat in leader Roderic O’Gorman – have suffered the heaviest of losses.
Miriam Lord’s excellent piece on the counting in the RDS is a must-read this morning.
According to Fintan O’Toole, it would be a silly exaggeration to call any general election a non-event.
But in this case the overstatement would be slight. The things that did not happen seem a lot more significant than those that did. The outcome is negatively charged in five different ways.
Amid signs of wariness in both Labour and the Social Democrats about joining a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition, newly elected Independent TDs have been declaring their willingness to support a new government. Our politics team have the story.
When it comes to what to watch out for this morning, there are two of five seats filled in Kildare-North with the 11th count set to start at 9am.
In Louth there are also two of five seats filled with the 18th count to start again at 10am.
In Tipperary North one of three seats has been filled and a recount starts this morning.
Just one of five seats has been filled in Cavan-Monaghan and it all cranks up again there at 1pm.
And finally there is also a recount coming in Cork North-Central.
Looking at the bigger picture, Fianna Fáil will be the largest party with 43 seats secured already. Sinn Féin are currently on 36 while Fine Gael are also on 36.
The Social Democrats have 11 seats, while Labour is on nine, while 23 candidates under the banner of Independent/Others have been elected.
What all that means in terms of government formation is that Sinn Féin can’t really form part of the next government without the support of one of the two other biggest parties.
The big news overnight was Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly losing his Dáil seat after being eliminated in Wicklow. Taoiseach Simon Harris’s running mate Edward Timmins was deemed elected at 5.25am without reaching the quota after benefiting enormously from a huge surplus from Harris, who topped the poll with more than 5,000 votes to spare.
Earlier in the day Donnelly said a combination of a strong “Government vote” for Mr Harris and the loss of a seat from the four-seat constituency had dented his chances.
“We knew Simon would take a huge vote – a Government vote, if you like – in the constituency. It was strong actually, but when you’re sharing a constituency and a hometown with a taoiseach and moving from a five-seater to a four-seater – when you put those two things together, it obviously creates a lot of pressure,” he said.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? No, no we are not. There is a ways to go yet before we will know the exact make-up of the next Dáil. At the time of writing - shortly after 7am - there are just 13 seats in to be filled with counting (and re-counting) set to continue in five constituencies.
