Dublin Fingal East

Profile

Province: Dublin

Seats: 3

Current TDs: 1 FF, 1 SF, 1 LAB

Projection: 1 FF, 1 FG, 1 LAB

Analysis

April 2026

This feels a bit more like a reversion to the mean. Fine Gael lost their seat here in 2024 in the midst of a comedic underperformance, where they got squeezed hard by Labour and Fianna Fáil in the new constituency, doing significantly worse than their pre-redraw support base in the constituency should have indicated. In my view this was one of the biggest upsets of 2024; there was no strategic botch, no vicious cut to their geographic support, they just straight up could not hold onto their voters. This let Sinn Féin pick up the final seat, but it’s certainly one where they are vulnerable moving forward and the model reflects this.

While last time round the model thought the Social Democrats were best placed to displace Sinn Féin, the corrections to local support levels mentioned in the intro of this piece push their vote down slightly, and with Fine Gael looking solid in Dublin, the pendulum swings back their way. Of course, there’s a lot of questions still. Does ex-TD Alan Farrell runs it back, or do FG go for a new face? How well will the Soc Dems and Sinn Féin transfer to eachother is also important – with Labour likely to not hit quota before one of them goes out. Interestingly this scenario favours the SDs quite a bit – I would expect them to get more SF transfers than SF would get from the SDs if Labour are still in the race. Anyway, this is all fairly marginal and there’s very clearly three viable contenders for the last seat.

December 2025

Is there room for both Labour and the Social Democrats here? Honestly, it’s more plausible than it might sound at first. Cllr. Joan Hopkins did well in 2024, and the Soc Dems are polling in Dublin a good amount above the level they attained in that election. On Labour’s side, Duncan Smith remains popular and overcame what was on paper a horrible redraw to maintain his seat. There’s certainly votes up for grabs that would not involve cannibalising the other – for example, from both the Greens and Independents4Change. It would not take a big shift from 2024 numbers for both to beat Sinn Féin, and that’s what the model shows at the moment.

However, it would be remiss to not mention that this is very close between the three left-wing parties, with all of them and Fine Gael projected to land on a roughly similar level of FPV. At that point it comes down to transfers, so allowance for confidence levels must be made there. Beyond the Fianna Fáil seat, which is very secure, any of these four have a plausible path to fill one of the final two seats. Fine Gael’s path is harder as they don’t have an obvious source of transfers – any elimination of Labour, SF or SDs would favour the other two over FG – but despite a significant underperformance in 2024, they should not yet be discounted.

September 2024

Note: Following comment from a local councillor pointing out that Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly is more likely to run in Fingal West, I have moved her out of this constituency.

This is an interesting one, and I would like to start by emphasising that there is a lot more uncertainty around new constituencies than with other projections, so please do bear that in mind. However, with Sinn Féin seriously struggling in Dublin polls, the model shows them being unable to add to their tally in the Fingal area. Instead, the model favours Independents4Change councillor Dean Mulligan.

Mulligan benefits from the redraw as his voter base is well over twice as strong in Fingal East as it was in Fingal West (based on 2020 tally figures), and we saw in the last general election that he is extremely transfer friendly – despite getting less than 4% of FPV, he finished less than 200 votes away from taking the 5th seat. If he is still able to attract transfers at that rate, particularly in a positive environment for Independents/Others, this is a very plausible outcome.

The other person who could potentially benefit from SF’s struggles is Labour TD Duncan Smith, who at the time of the redraw looked doomed. He still has a bit of a mountain to climb but this is the strongest position he’s seen for a long while. If SF really are doing as poorly as the polls indicate, he could very much find himself in a three-way fight with their candidate and Mulligan for the final seat.

August 2023 (redraw)

Rather than move parts of Fingal in Dublin North-West or Meath East and add seats, the comission opted to split the five seater into two three-seaters with the ugliest boundary possible. The East constituency seems built very specifically around Swords, Portmarnock, Malahide and Donabate, and moves the Balgriffin ED to Bay North. This constituency is super-spicy because it contains four of the five sitting TDs for the old Fingal constituency: Alan Farrell (FG), Darragh O’Brien (FF), Duncan Smith (LAB) and Louise O’Reilly (SF). One of these is going to lose out and spoiler alert: It’s Duncan Smith.

While the Labour candidate keeps most of his base around Swords, and will likely increase is overall FPV, the drop from two to 5 seats will likely be fatal to his chances. This is the stronger new constituency for both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and their incumbents will likely re-run.

Sinn Féin’s position is a bit weirder, as despite being Swords-based, O’Reilly actually did better in the areas in the new Fingal West, largely because of relative SF weakness in Malahide and the addition of new areas inside the M50 to West. However, I don’t expect her to move; she’s really strong in Swords and, as an incumbent, seems to me to be better placed to hold in the less-SF friendly constituency than a new candidate might be.