Roscommon–Galway

Profile

Province: Connacht-Ulster

Seats: 3

Current TDs: 1 II, 1 SF, 1 IND

Projection: 1 II, 1 SF, 1 FG

Analysis

October 2024

This is an interesting one. Michael Fitzmaurice has finally stopped hedging and confirmed he will run here rather than Galway East, and that should be a comfortable win for him – and one that saves me an awful lot of recalculating. So thank you, Michael. It’s also a sensible choice because although he’s at the Galway end of the constituency, he still did extremely well in in the EDs that make up the new constituencies – tallies put him a little north of 20%. With Independents/Others polling well and Denis Naughten (IND) retiring, the question has always been who joins him.

It’s tight between Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and this month the model gives the former and latter a small edge. But this change is not just about polling. After failing to get selected for Fianna Fáil, Senator Eugene Murphy left the party and is running as an Independent. This is a massive, massive headache for FF. Murphy is a former TD, and in a constituency that is now more heavily weighted towards Roscommon, can do some serious damage to their vote there. There is a chance, honestly, that Murphy himself makes a serious run at a seat; the model doesn’t have him that far behind, but his vote share is extremely hard to project, so no outcome would surprise me on that front.

Fine Gael, by the way, are very fortunate that Murphy has entered the race. They are running two candidates, and following the tragic passing of John Naughten, opted replace him on the ballot rather than only run one. This is a difficult strategy on their current numbers, but is less likely to cost them with Murphy in the mix than with just one FF candidate. But the last two seats here remain a tricky one – Sinn Féin, it must be noted, are not far ahead of the rest of them in the model.

August 2023 (redraw)

Roscommon-Galway loses a vast swathe of Galway EDs to Galway East, while taking on the remaining Roscommon EDs previously in Sligo-Leitrim; this results in a net loss of population and a fair amount of uncertainty. Of the incumbents this is likely to hurt Michael Fitzmaurice (IND) the most, but with Denis Naughten (IND) not running again, there’s a far bigger vote to be won that what he has lost. The main beneficiary will likely be north Roscommon based Claire Kerrane (SF), though this could be fertile ground for Fine Gael given their performance here in 2020. Again, a lot of uncertainty here with so many changes, but the redraw does not change the model’s projection.

February 2023

This is a bit of an odd one. Denis Naughten (IND) has announced that he won’t be contesting the next election, and thus his seat is gone. The question of course is who would benefit from this – and the instinctive response would be Fine Gael. Naughten was a member of the party from 1997 until 2011, before losing the whip. Following this, he joined the Reform Alliance political group, but was smart enough to get out before it turned into the gigantic clusterfuck that was Renua. As an Independent he propped up Enda Kenny’s minority government and was rewarded with a ministry until he was caught up in a corruption scandal.

As you can see, despite being an Independent, the Fine Gael history is strong. So why does the model think this seat will go to Fianna Fáil? There’s two reasons. Firstly, based on polling, FF are likely going to be stronger than FG here, as they were in 2016 and 2020. Secondly, looking at where Naughten’s transfers have historically gone during his time as an Independent, they have tended to go more to FF than to FG?

And now the reasons why this could be wrong: FF have been stronger than FG in Roscommon-Galway, but is that the natural state of things or is it because Naughten took up votes that otherwise might have gone to FG? The transfer numbers are from 2016, transfers are not a reliable metric at the best of times and even less so from this long ago. Will geography end up being a factor depending on who each party runs? Or will another Independent emerge from somewhere like Michael Fitzmaurice did?

This is definitely a case that pushes up against the limitations of the model, and this is certainly a projection that could end up being wildly wrong; there are a lot of obfuscatory factors. However, absent a better way of doing it, and as picking what I personally think might happen would defeat the entire point of this experiment, it goes into the FF column.

April 2021

Independents have been polling well recently, particularly in Connacht-Ulster, so this change shouldn’t be a huge surprise, as the model now favours Denis Naughten to hold his seat against Fine Gael, though naturally it remains close. Fianna Fáil are the only other party looking at breaking 2% FPV here, so their transfers will be crucial in deciding this one, and in 2020 they didn’t look great for FG.

January 2021

Sinn Féin’s Claire Kerrane and Independent Michael Fitzmaurice look fairly comfortable here. Polling numbers have Kerrane as a potential poll-topper, and Fitzmaurice is easily popular enough to ride out the downward movement of Independents.

The other IND TD, Denis Naughten, might be in trouble, and the model suggests that he will lose out to a surging Fine Gael. The one thing that is missed by the model, and might help Naughten, is that he is essentially an Independent FG candidate, having represented the party in the Dáil for over a decade. While his vote crumbled in 2020, following a fairly disastrous stint as a Minister, he still commanded enough support to handily see of an FG challenger. It remains to be seen if he can pull that off again and peel away enough of the FG surge to keep his seat, but right now it looks tough.

Fianna Fáil will also be borderline competitive here, but their declining numbers put them below Naughten right now, let alone Fine Gael. Without a polling swing back in their direction, regaining the seat they lost in 2020 will be a big ask.