Dublin North-West

Profile

Province: Dublin

Seats: 3

Current TDs: 1 SF, 1 FF, 1 SD

Projection: 1 SF, 1 FF, 1 SD

Analysis

September 2024

Given their general increase in the polls over the summer, it might be a bit surprising to see Fine Gael dropping a seat anywhere, but it should not be ignored that Fianna Fáil are also enjoying a notable polling bump. In this case it’s enough for the model to favour incumbent TD Paul McAuliffe over whoever Fine Gael put forward. Dublin North-West, at the time of writing, is one of the few constituencies where Fine Gael do not have a candidate nominated yet, and don’t have a councillor in the LEA that makes up the biggest chunk of the constituency (they do have councillors in other LEAs partially in DNW, but I am not sure if they are in the DNW parts or not).

I expect this race to have quite a different complexion to last time as well. Soc Dem TD Róisín Shortall will be retiring, and Sinn Féin will certainly not be getting 44% FPV again – and their TD, Dessie Ellis, is 71. They haven’t announced a candidate yet, and I have no idea if he will contest again or not. PBP councillor Conor Reddy is in an interesting spot as a result of this – his ability to attract SF transfers in 2020 converted a weak FPV performance into a very respectable 4th place finish. If he can pull disproportionately from SF and SD votes, he could beat the model – a long shot, but one to keep an eye one.

Finally, this is an area the far-right will target heavily; in the local elections they returned a councillor in Ballymun-Finglas, while their rogues gallery combined to pick up around 20% of votes in the LEA. Not enough to meaningfully challenge for a Dáil seat, but absolutely enough to cause chaos and introduce a huge amount of uncertainty on transfers.

October 2023

This is interesting. Previously the situation here has been that if Fine Gael do manage to leapfrog Fianna Fáil, they themselves would be leapfrogged by a second candidate from Sinn Féin. With SF’s numbers in Dublin going backwards alongside Fianna Fáil’s, and Fine Gael’s increasing, this is no longer the case and the model favours FG to nick the last seat here.

That said, the way the SF vote breaks down between two candidates is an unknown factor still, while the model bases it on historical data this is fairly thin, so there’s certainly ways SF could vote manage their way to two seats here even on these numbers. Whether or not it’s possible for them to do so is a completely different question.

August 2023 (redraw)

While the two new Fingals clearly have the hands-down ugliest boundaries imaginable, Dublin North-West has suffered from losing its northern perimeter. Although this makes sense in terms of local administrative boundaries, it’s a bit weird given the physical geography of the city. These losses to Fingal West and Dublin West plus the addition of EDs from Bay North move the constituency overall to the right, making a Fianna Fáil hold more likely and second Sinn Féin seat further away.

June 2023

Bit of a surprise this, given how dominant Sinn Féin were in North-West in 2020, but with them polling barely above their total from that year in the capital and Fianna Fáil enjoying an improvement, this now switches to show Paul McAuliffe favoured to hold onto his seat – albeit by an extremely slim probability that relies heavily on Fine Gael transfers.

Speaking of which – transfers are key to a right-wing seat existing in this constituency, as FF and FG cannot both hold a seat. Rather, one will be reliant on the transfers of the other. And while I have low confidence in projecting transfers, it is worth noting that it seems that FF would get more of FG’s transfers than vice-versa. This means that if FF are eliminated first, SF are more likely to win a second seat than if FG were eliminated first. But that is highly speculative.

I also have consistently forgotten that in 2016, SF did run two candidates here and made an uncharacteristic dog’s dinner of managing the votes. It didn’t matter then because they simply did not have the votes to win two seats – which likely will not be the case next time. If they can’t improve on what they did in 2016 this time round, it makes a second seat a lot harder for them.

December 2021

Dublin North-West features yet another change, but to a completely new configuration, joining Roscommon-Galway as one of the two constituencies where the model reckons the government won’t return a single TD. The movement up of Sinn Féin and down of Fine Gael has created a new possibility of SF returning two TDs and Social Democrat Róisín Shortall keeping her seat.

It might seem odd, but it was only in 2011 that DNW returned no government TDs, electing current incumbents Shortall and Ellis (SF) along with another Labour TD. Since then the constituency lost parts of Drumcondra, which would have been more Fine Gael-leaning than the area as a whole, so this outcome is certainly a plausible one that gets more and more likely if current polling trends in Dublin endure.

October 2021

I won’t lie, I’m fairly tired of swapping Róisín Shortall (SD) around with a second SF candidate, so there’s not a lot to say here except that this month’s polling favours her. Indeed, in Dublin it’s been good for the Soc Dems and relatively disappointing for SF, so there’s probably more daylight between the two than we’ve seen at any point previous. Let’s see if that stabilises.

September 2021

Last time around, the downward SD trend hadn’t really had an impact here; this time it does, once again favouring a theoretical second SF candidate over the SD’s Shortall. There’s not much to say here that hasn’t already been said about the myriad reasons that this is extremely marginal and comes down to factors the model can’t really account for very well.

It’s also worth noting that, while relatively unlikely, it’s not completely outside the realms of possibility that this constituency rolls back to the glory days of 2011 and elects zero right-wing TDs, going with two Sinn Féin and one Soc Dem, but as long as FG’s polling in Dublin remains where it is, that’s very much an outside chance.

June 2021

This one is a bit interesting, as the downward SD trend over the summer isn’t reflected, largely because of the movement between other parties. It’s still really close; we’re talking an edge of fractions of a percentage in term of probability for for Róisín Shortall over a putative second SF candidate, but it’s the first time the model has had the Soc Dem co-leader keeping her seat.

I’ve discussed DNW a couple of times, but to be clear – a loss here would be devastating for the SDs. I expect they’ll overperform the modelling because of Shortall’s name recognition and the importance of the seat, but this remains potentially very interesting.

January 2021

Yes, yes, I know. Róisin Shortall losing her seat looks wrong. I agree that the SDs dropping this seat looks wrong too, but I’m not going to arbitrarily adjust the model outputs based on feeling (though I will of course be working continuous to improve the model). I will explain here why the model gives this result.

Firstly, you have to consider that Sinn Féin’s Dessie Ellis got over 44% of FPV in 2020, and is projected to come in around the same amount next time. This is an insane number, particularly in a three-seater. It is absolutely implausible to think that he wouldn’t bring home a running mate, even if it ends up in a Cyprian Brady scenario. Hell, in 2020, Ellis’ surplus nearly Cyprian Brady’d Conor Reddy, a first-time PBP candidate who had polled less than 4% (PBP will not be anywhere close this time if SF run two).

Without Ellis’ surplus, and with SD poll numbers looking ropey, Shortall is suddenly at a disadvantage against whoever wins out between FF and FG, and currently the environment favours FG there, who would probably have held the seat in 2020 if they had had a stronger incumbent. It’s not a sure thing but right now the model favours a generic FG candidate over either Shortall or FF incumbent Paul McAuliffe. With that said, if FG run Noel Rock again, all bets are off.

Now, with that said, Shortall is high profile enough that she might buck the downward trend in SD polling, or absorb more SF transfers than expected. But right now, the numbers indicate this will be an uphill struggle for her.