Dublin Bay North

Profile

Province: Dublin

Seats: 5

Current TDs: 1 FF, 1 SF, 1 FG, 1 LAB ^(vacant), 1 SD

Projection: 1 SF, 1 FG, 1 LAB, 1 SD, 1 IND

Analysis

October 2024

Ah, old friend, every time I think I understand you, you throw another curveball my way. This has been a consistently volatile constituency where the probability margins are extremely fine, and is likely only going to continue to get more complex between now and polling day. Last month I flagged Independent Cllr Barry Heneghan as being an intriguing prospect but I did not expect the model to assign him a seat a month later, much less at the expense of Fianna Fáil.

This constituency is very difficult to call with great confidence, and has been for years, so I would advise caution here, but Heneghan is in a solid position to take advantage of the swing towards Independents in Dublin. There are others who may benefit – Cllr John Lyons, or any one of the five or six far-right candidates – but Heneghan’s position is the strongest. He had the best performance of any of them at the locals, has his entire LEA in the constituency (which can’t be said for Lyons or Kevin Coyle), and outside of the model has been fairly public in his role as councillor. If there is an Independent seat to be won here, which is currently likely although far from guaranteed, Heneghan has the best shot.

As for FF, the change here is mostly due to the model really disliking a two candidate strategy for them, but within that there are vote splits that would have them hold the seat even on current numbers. It should be noted that this scenario would still allocate Heneghan a seat, with Labour’s Shane Folan losing out. I actually expect the model to filter out the Labour seat here shortly regardless.

A note on the far-right, as this is an area targeted heavily by them. Via the National Alliance (which not every far-right group is part of), they have made a clear effort to divvy up constituencies and get out of eachother’s way. That uneasy peace appears to have totally collapsed in DBN, with four far-right Independents, the Irish Freedom Party, and an extremely right-wing member of Aontú (even by Aontú standards) all running here. This is the sort of thing that could seriously blunt any momentum they are trying to build. Just… thank God I didn’t have to work out what would have happened had Antoinette Keegan ran.

September 2024

No way anyone thought there’d be 26 constituency changes this month and Dublin Bay North wouldn’t be among them. Labour have been having positive polling in Dublin recently, and while the 13% they got in the capital in the B&A poll should be very much assumed to be an outlier, the overall movement has been marginally positive. In tight races with small parties, this can have a very significant impact, and that’s the case here as the model now favours them to hold the seat previously occupied by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

Naturally, given the recent trend, the theoretical second Sinn Féin seat the the one that is gone, and given their generally conservative approach to candidate announcements, I’m not even sure they will end up running two here. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago given Denise Mitchell’s absolutely dominant performance, but their numbers in Dublin are so bad right now.

Of course, Ó Ríordáin’s departure following his successful European election campaign does create more uncertainty here, and as of the time of writing, Labour have not nominated a successor yet, and I believe they only have one councillor in the constituency. The door here is still very much open if we see improvements for any of the big three parties, Independent Clontarf councillor Barry Heneghan has the potential to make things interesting, and who knows what impact the far-right, who are heavily targeting here, will have. I expect this one to keep moving around.

May 2024

It’s not all doom and gloom for Fianna Fáil this month, despite continually weak polling. Their numbers in Dublin aren’t really better than in February by any significant margin, but everybody else except Indepdents/Others and Aontú are going backwards. This combines to overall benefit FF, and change the likelihood in a couple of highly marginal constituencies, including Dublin Bay North.

Marginal is the key word here however – the difference between Fianna Fáil, Labour and a putative second Sinn Féin candidate is really small, and this constituency remains very close for the final two seats. Any combination of those three is very plausible within the margin of error.

One thing I do want to note about DBN also is it illustrates one of the conundrums of modelling Independents – combined, the model would put the Independent/Other vote in the ballpark of being competitive for a seat. However, when you look at how it breaks down in 2020, you have a mishmash of candidates from the far-left to the far-right. It’s a useful illustration of how this can’t ever be seen as monolithic, and what would happen to the votes if one or more 2020 candidates doesn’t run – or indeed, if more Independent candidates run – is very hard to determine.

February 2024

Seán Haughey (Fianna Fáil)’s retirement makes the difference here. FF have been narrowly favoured to hold this seat for a while now, but without an incumbent TD their chances drop, though they are still fairly close. The Social Democrat seat here looks safer than ever before with current strong polling in Dublin, leaving the final two seats between Labour, a second Sinn Féin candidate and Fianna Fáil.

In FF’s favour, they have plenty of local councillors in the area – including former Lord Mayor of Dublin Tom Brabazon. They also got the highest share of first preference vote in three of the four LEAs that wholly or partially are in the constituency. So I wouldn’t say there’s no hope for them, but they are certainly up against it. This is a persistently competitive constituency and they almost certainly would not have retained a seat there in 2020 if Sinn Féin had run two candidates.

Also, not relevant to anything projection-wise, but might be of interest to some people: this might be the end of the Lemass/Haughey dynasty, unless unsuccessful 2019 LE candidates Hannah Lemass or Cathal Haughey opt to continue to run.

August 2023 (redraw)

Dublin Bay North loses a chunk of EDs to the now extremely arbitrarily-shaped Dublin North-West and takes the more lightly-populated Balgriffin ED from the dismembered Dublin Fingal. This does disadvantage Sinn Féin and advantage Fine Gael very slightly, but half a percentage point or so is not tremendously material under current polling conditions. That said, it ought come as a small relief to the candidates from Fianna Fáil, the Soc Dems and Labour, who are under pressure from a theoretical 2nd SF candidate – especially the latter of those three, who also stands to lose out a little under this redraw. Of course, Richard Bruton (FG) announcing this month that he will not seek re-election is a substantial wild card.

June 2023

Bad month in Dublin for Sinn Féin, good month for Labour. With Fianna Fáil and the Soc Dems also doing well in the capital, this change shouldn’t be surprising in a constituency that remains really hard to predict and consistently throws up fine margins for the final three seats.

It is worth noting of course that the model has to make assumptions about SF vote management where they run two candidates, and there are scenarios where a split is managed well enough to bring both home on current numbers, but it would be very tricky to engineer that on the ground, so right now the model does not favour them gaining a second seat.

April 2023

After looking pretty strong in the wake of Bacik’s by-election victory, Labour’s polling in Dublin has declined to where the RPA has it barely ahead of the party’s 2020 performance. In fact, if we look at the last five polls, the average is even lower – this ought be concerning.

Conversely, the Soc Dems have had a little bounce up since Holly Cairns took over as leader, and a chunk of that seems to have come at Labour’s expense. In a constituency where Sinn Féin look likely to add a second TD, someone’s going to have to lose, and right now the model reckons that’s Labour. The party is showing very few signs of life in the polls, and most of its incumbent TDs are vulnerable to some extent, so if I were them I’d worry. It’s also worth noting that they are doing much, much better in Dublin according to B&A than they are according to RedC.

The one saving grace for them in DBN is Fianna Fáil’s weak position in Dublin polls as well – right now the model has a very slight edge for FF over Labour here, but hardly anything I’d consider definitive. DBN overall, despite these relative fluctuations, remains likely highly competitive and quite unpredictable beyond the first two seats.

February 2022

Sigh. Dublin Bay North continues to be volatile and will just not stop swapping the final seat. It is worth noting that overall there is some stabilisation – the Fianna Fáil seat looks safer than it ever has as their numbers continue to rise, and Sinn Féin’s chances for a second seat looks relatively secure. But the battle between Cian O’Callaghan (SD) and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (LAB) is still set up to be viciously close.

Both parties had a good RedC poll this month (at 7% in Dublin), but a bad showing in B&A (2%, versus Labour’s 5%) does enough to drop the SDs back into sixth place in this constituency. O’Callaghan gobbled up transfers in 2020 to overhaul Ó Ríordáin and Haughey (FF) to finish third, but the presence of a second Sinn Féin candidate may end up making that a lot harder next go-round. I’d suspect he’ll need to be closer on FPV, but unless something shifts radically, this isn’t going to be comfortable either way.

November 2021

Dublin Bay North features again, for the third month in a row, and I’ve honestly decided that it has now surpassed Cork South-West as the most chaotic constituency in the country (electorally of course – both are perfectly lovely places otherwise).

Sinn Féin are now favoured to get that final seat back, with Labour’s numbers in Dublin dropping off a bit this month. The Social Democrat and Fianna Fáil seats look a little safer with decent polling in Dublin for both this month, but there’s still no clear daylight on the final three seats and this is going to keep moving for a while.

While their current polling continues to decline, a second Fine Gael candidate also remains a potential lurking threat, though the constituency dynamics and those polling numbers mean it’s an extremely long shot.

October 2021

This is another constituency that is extremely close, so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing a change in the projection here. What is, perhaps, surprising is what that change is – this is the first time since these projections began that the model has shown Sinn Féin not winning a second seat in the constituency. I certainly didn’t expect this, but with another stagnant-to-declining month for Sinn Féin in Dublin, the prospect is now very much on the cards.

This latest movement would, of course, mean no change in the constituency’s current representation; given how hyper-competitive this area is, that itself might be something of a surprise. While Richard Bruton (FG) and Denise Mitchell (SF) look untouchable right now, the remaining three seats are, as always, an extremely close, messy contest between the incumbents from Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Social Democrats and a putative second SF candidate.

It is worth noting that Mitchell’s result in 2020 was incredibly impressive and ran very far ahead of even the positive SF swing in Dublin. So it is not implausible that she overperforms the trend here again and SF do win that second seat, even if the model doesn’t think it to be the most likely result.

One potential other spanner in the works with FG’s continual lead in Dublin: if they nail their candidate strategy and manage their vote split well – something they failed at hilariously in Dublin Bay North in both 2016 and 2020 – their second candidate could end up being more competitive than expected.

September 2021

Dublin Bay North continues to be an extremely volatile constituency, with two of the five seats seeing permanently up for grabs, and a new permutation arising with every new set of polls. The question remains as to which of Fianna Fáil, Labour or the Soc Dems will lose their seat to a second Sinn Féin candidate, and if Fine Gael can knock off a second one of them.

With Labour improving in the polls, and the Soc Dems dropping off after a surge earlier in the year, Cian O’Callaghan now looks the most vulnerable. Fine Gael’s theoretical second candidate is still very much in the mix, and will come down to if they can find someone strong enough to attract a decent FPV without weakening Bruton too much. With good vote management, it’s quite possible. If they do, that projected Labour hold starts to look even more tenuous than it already is.

June 2021

FF’s little bounce over the last few months finally reflects here; at the start of the year Seán Haughey looked to be a bit of a lost cause but now he’s slid back up and is looking like he’ll be fairly comfortable in this electorally chaotic constituency. It’s not a sure bet by any means – Labour and a second Fine Gael candidate will be hot on his heels, and the SDs are also looking a bit less comfortable than before. Every time I think I’ve figured DBN out, it changes, so this can very much be classified along with Cork South West as one that’s gonna swing back and forth constantly.

April 2021

As mentioned above, I have some doubts about this one, so it may change in the near future, but let’s look at what we have. Cian O’Callaghan (SD) is still likely to poll behind Labour and FF, and overtake both on transfers. The big movement is due to the correction to swing made for Fine Gael, who are now in a position that Richard Bruton is likely to have a very substantial surplus.

This should be enough to drag even a weak second FG candidate over the line – and I don’t think FG could lumber him with a weaker running mate than they did last time out. That said, we are still looking at a very close race between the SDs, the second FG candidate, Labour and FF for the last two seats. I wouldn’t rule any of them out at this point. DBN continues to be a volatile constituency and I imagine it will be featuring regularly in these updates for the foreseeable future.

February 2021

This one is relatively close. Prior modelling indicated that Richard Bruton was well-positioned to bring in a running-mate, and while that may still be the case, there’s an indication that it will be much tougher than previously expected – January numbers had FG cruising to a second seat . On current numbers, it would require a level of management of the vote split that, based on past efforts in DBN, it’s not clear that FG are capable of pulling off.

The polling is good for Soc Dem incumbent Cian O’Callaghan, who previously was looking unlikely to beat FF’s Seán Haughey into sixth place, let alone hold his seat. The outlook this month is a lot more rosy; while he still trails Haughey and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin on FPV, the model indicates he would overhaul both on transfers. However, of course, there is a major caveat here – transfers are much harder to predict. So while the model leans SD here, it’s no sure thing. I expect the final seats here to swing back and forth between O’Callaghan, Ó Ríordáin, Haughey and a theoretical second FG candidate, unless there is a decisive shift in polling.

January 2021

Let’s get one thing out of the way – DBN is a goddamn mess, represented by a rainbow of parties after SF blew everyone else away, more than quadrupling their FPV from 2016, while only running one candidate. Denise Mitchell will comfortably be able to bring in a running-mate here, but SF’s vote in Dublin currently feels maxed out – it’s a question of running the right number of candidates rather than increasing their vote share.

Richard Bruton of FG will cruise to re-election, and in all likelihood will bring home a running-mate, providing FG can be bothered to couple him with someone who is marginally less of a liability than random-slur-generator Catherine Noone.

The final seat is going to be tight between FF, Labour and the SDs, but an increase in FG FPV stands to benefit Labour on transfers, and thus the model favours Aodhán Ó Ríordáin to edge it, although either of the other two are possible.

There is an outside chance at the moment of either FF or, less likely, the SDs holding on and preventing a FG seat, but this relies entirely on FG running a catastrophically unpopular second candidate again, which seems unlikely. It’s also worth noting that in this scenario, if FF outsmart themselves and run two candidates again, Cian O’Callaghan becomes favoured to sneak it over Seán Haughey. But again, this is wholly contingent on a theoretical unforced error from FG.