Profile
Province: Dublin
Seats: 4
Current TDs: 1 FF, 1 FG, 1 GP, 1 PBP
Projection: 1 FF, 2 FG, 1 PBP
Gains
FG +1
Losses
GP -1
Analysis
October 2021
This is the first time since I began these projections that the model is showing that Fine Gael are more likely to only win two seats than three. They still look very comfortable on two – and they would have won two here in 2020 on lower numbers than their current polling, were it not for a completely botched candidate strategy.
Fianna Fáil look set to benefit here as the model now favours Cormac Devlin to hold onto his seat, although Green Party incumbent Ossian Smyth is not far behind in his battle to keep his. Realistically, with Fine Gael adding another TD almost a certainty, only one of them can hold on, and FG will still be competitive to add a third. Nobody else is particularly in the running, though part of me hopes Mary Hanafin somehow manages to wangle her way onto the ballot again, because that will create complete chaos.
January 2021
Dún Laoghaire hasn’t had three Fine Gael TDs since 1982, which given the constituency’s profile, surprised me too. That looks like it could change here, and relatively easily. FG could win more than half the total votes here.
It’s also worth noting that many of the other parties here are in disarray, on a polling basis at least. The Green decline will cost Ossian Smyth his seat. FF’s current incumbent got less FPV than FG’s third candidate did in 2020, and his party’s poll numbers are tanking. SF, while hitting a high water-mark in a constituency that they are historically weak in, are still some distance off a seat and aren’t showing improvement in their Dublin poll numbers.
PBP’s Richard Boyd Barrett should emerge with the other seat, as his numbers are strong enough to offset his party’s poor polling, and he’s not vulnerable to an SF surplus squeeze like many of his colleagues are, because SF are nowhere near getting a surplus here.
Currently its tough to see any other alternatives emerging under the model, unless there is a significant movement in polling.
Irish Election Projections 