Dublin Central

Profile

Province: Dublin

Seats: 4

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

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

Analysis

December 2025

We’re pending a by-election on this one following the resignation of Paschal Donohue (Fine Gael), and honestly at this point it’s not clear who should be favoured to win there. The outcome will likely colour any projection so consider this kind of a placeholder. For what it’s worth I don’t expect FG to win the by-election, but I would reckon current Lord Mayor Ray McAdam would be able to win Paschal’s seat in the next General. The Labour seat is almost certainly the most vulnerable, and if Sinn Féin win the by-election they would have a real, though not guaranteed, shot at holding both seats; they are probably the only party that could manage that.

There’s also the whole Gerry Hutch thing, where those Clare Daly voters go, what happens with Malachy Steenson and so on. Big pinch of salt here until the by-election, but right now the numbers indicate no change.

October 2024

How do I explain this? Well let’s start by being very clear that even in an environment where there is more confidence issues with outputs, this is one of the least confident ones. I did flag last month that this was a constituency with potential for a strong Independent/Other candidate to consolidate votes, but I didn’t expect Daly to be the one to emerge.

Former TD and MEP Clare Daly (I4C) enters the race in a constituency she’s never contested before, and where we have minimal data. We have a vague idea of how she might have done here in the European elections, data that Independents/Others are polling very well in Dublin and, honestly while its very likely she is competitive one way or the other, I’m a bit surprised it’s enough for the model to suggest a win is likely. But would say that the margin for error in either direction for this is massive.

The impact Daly’s entry into the race will have on other candidates is hard to assess as well – will she pull votes from Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats, possibly imperling Gary Gannon? Will she blunt the efforts of Independent Malachy Steenson, who while politically very different is also looking for “anti-establishment” votes? Will there be any impact at all on Fianna Fáil? It feels Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohue is the only person unlikely to be affected by this at all.

Right now the model narrowly gives Daly the seat it previously assigned to FF, but this is now a very open race behind Donohue and SF leader Mary Lou McDonald. Any combination of Daly, FF, SDs, another Independent or even the Green Party is now on the table for the other two seats, and a strong campaign could put 2nd SF candidate Cllr Janice Boylan back into the mix. This is very hard to get a read on, there’s a huge number of questions that data doesn’t have the answer for.

September 2024

In the very first set of projections on this website, back in January of 2021, I described Sinn Féin’s decision to not give party leader Mary Lou McDonald a running mate as “frankly irresponsible”. If you wanted a point to emphasise just how disastrous the polling situation for SF is in Dublin right now, this is it: the model no longer favours Mary Lou being able to bring home a second candidate, in a constituency where she won nearly 1.8 quotas last time out.

Hell, it’s not even clear right now if SF will give her a running mate. On current numbers that might be the right call, though pulling off two seats here is not yet beyond the realms of possibility. If we do see a recovery for SF this is absolutely somewhere they should be looking to make gains. It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do here – particularly because I suspect running Mary Lou alone will be interpreted as SF waving a white flag on the election.

So who benefits? Right now the model thinks Fianna Fáil Senator Mary Fitzpatrick is most likely to grab the seat that has eluded her since 2007. This is pretty straightforward – she’s had a well established base for a while now and has been competitive every time she’s run, but there is more to it than that. Dublin Central has been a traditional stronghold for Independent voters, many of whom swung to SF in 2020. If a candidate can emerge to consolidate those potential voters, things will be very interesting.

August 2023 (redraw)

Dublin Central was unchanged by the redraw.

October 2022

Another symptom of Fianna Fáil’s bad month of polling in Dublin shows this potential pick-up disappearing for now, though there is also the impact of having more non-B&A polls, who are very harsh on the Social Democrats; their polling is up marginally this month versus September. Either way, Gary Gannon should now be favoured to hold his seat, but this is far from certain; the Greens aren’t far behind here still and all the caveats I mentioned last month still apply.

July 2022

As mentioned before, with only B&A to go on this month, it’s not great for the Soc Dems, and even after adjusting the figures for the house effect, the model shows Gary Gannon losing his seat – this time to Fianna Fáil (who tend to do better in B&A polls than RedC ones). This isn’t the first time the model has shown this, and while I do think it’s something that will wash out shortly, there are reasons that this could happen.

Basically, Gannon was a significant beneficiary of Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald’s surplus in 2020, getting a good chunk of it initially, and then another amount via PBP transfers. If SF run a second candidate here – and frankly, they’d be mad not to – his transfer situation doesn’t look great; it would hurt him more than his GP or FF rivals. Remember, Mary Fitzpatrick (FF) did beat Gannon on first preferences in 2020. And depending on boundary shifts, this constituency could be potentially viable for three SF candidates.

With that said however, if he stays ahead of the Greens, you’d imagine those votes would be more likely to go to him than to FF. So I think the model is underestimating him based on the B&A figures, but I don’t think it’s a completely implausible outcome.

March 2022

Not a lot to note here, as the change from last month flips back. The SDs got a crazy high result in Dublin in the B&A poll this month (11%!), and while the RPA has successfully smoothed that out for the most part, it has had an impact in this constituency, where a razor-thin margin continues to separate the Social Democrats, the Greens and Fianna Fáil in the race for the final seat. With FF and the Greens generally trending upwards in Dublin, I suspect this will remain competitive for a while yet.

Who gets eliminated first will be key. If FF or the SDs are knocked out first, that would favour the Greens; if the Greens go first, that would favour the SDs – essentially making it quite difficult for FF to get ahead. The presence of a second Sinn Féin candidate is, however, a bit of a wildcard when it comes to transfers, so there’s still a lot of unknowns here.

February 2022

Another tough one this month for the Social Democrats. With the Greens and Fianna Fáil rising, and Sinn Féin all but guaranteed to take a second seat here, Gary Gannon could be on the outside looking in, with Neasa Hourigan (GP) now favoured to keep her seat. With that said, the distance between the SDs, Greens and FF is basically negligible, and this could swing right back with even a marginal shift in polling. Indeed, on current numbers, the final seat here is one of the closest in the country and looks to be settled by transfers – something that inherently carries a much higher margin of error when projected.

Who gets eliminated first will be key. If FF or the SDs are knocked out first, that would favour the Greens; if the Greens go first, that would favour the SDs – essentially making it quite difficult for FF to get ahead. The presence of a second Sinn Féin candidate is, however, a bit of a wildcard when it comes to transfers, so there’s still a lot of unknowns here.

February 2021

There’s not a ton interesting here – this was an inevitable outcome of the Green polling numbers in Dublin, really. FPV projections still have Neasa Hourigan (GP) ahead of Gary Gannon (SD) by a razor thin margin, but similar to DBN, transfers make the difference. As with DBN I would of course sound a note of restraint when it comes to transfers, but the FPV gap here is so small that I’m more comfortable with this call. It’s worth noting as well that Fianna Fáil aren’t a mile behind either candidate, but they are even less transfer friendly than either, so will need to pull ahead on FPV to be truly competitive. Given their current numbers in Dublin, this doesn’t look particularly likely.

January 2021

Okay, like, I get that Sinn Féin were caught completely flat-footed in 2020 by their own electoral success, but not running two in Dublin Central was frankly irresponsible. Mary Lou McDonald got 24% in 2016, Maureen O’Sullivan had retired, and the constituency has an engaged and actively voting working-class voter base. They won’t be making the same mistake again, and will stroll into two seats.

Paschal Donohue will cruise home for FG, but after that it gets interesting. Donohue benefitted from a weak running-mate in 2020, allowing him to stay ahead in a close race for the seats behind McDonald. This time he’s in a much better spot, and there’s potential for him to bring in a running-mate if a few things break FG’s way.

Specifically, this requires the continued polling struggles of the Green Party and the Social Democrats. One of Neasa Hourigan and Gary Gannon is going to lose out to SF, but a continued FG surge could see the other also in trouble, especially with less SF surplus transfers to help them out. Hourigan’s numbers are currently holding up better than Gannon’s, so the model thinks it more likely that the SD will lose out but with the Greens polling in steep decline, this could well change in the near future.

It’s worth noting that the GP and SD candidates here have repeatedly clashed with their own party’s leadership and shown a more independent minded streak than some of their colleagues. It remains to be seen whether or not this will help them buck their parties’ trends, but the model cannot, at this stage, factor that in.

Short of a meme return for Bertie Ahern and his lifelong commitment to ruining Mary Fitzpatrick’s career, Fianna Fáil aren’t coming close to a seat here.