O’Reilly to run in Dublin Fingal West

Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly will run in the newly-created Dublin Fingal West constituency.

O’Reilly topped the poll in the 2020 general election when the constituency was known as Dublin Fingal.

Following constituency boundary redraws last year, the five-seater was changed into two separate three-seater constituencies, West and East.

While we have extensively covered the match-up in the East of the constituency over the last few weeks, now the race in the West is starting to shape up nicely.

O’Reilly has been selected to run in the West constituency, joining already confirmed candidates Joe O’Brien of the Greens and Labour councillor Robert O’Donoghue. 

“The people of the constituency that I live in, that I am proud to represent, deserve so much better than this out-of-touch government,” she said.

O’Reilly was first elected in the 2016 general election, famously taking out former Minister for Health James Reilly. 

Before her career in politics, O’Reilly worked as an organiser for SIPTU.

Her 2020 general election performance saw her nearly triple her share of first preferences compared to 2016, jumping up to 24.9% from her previous performance of 8.7%.

In more recent times, O’Reilly has served as Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on workers’ rights, enterprise, trade and employment.

In response to news that RTÉ would receive over €700 million in funding from the government and the licence fee would be kept, she remarked “the writing is on the wall for the TV licence, it is long past time it was scrapped.”

Dublin Fingal West contains Rush, Lusk, Skerries, and Balbriggan among its major settlements.

The area is made up of the Rush-Lusk and Balbriggan constituencies and part of the Swords constituency at a local level.

June’s local election results saw Sinn Féin make something of a breakthrough in the local electoral areas covered by Dublin Fingal West.

In Balbriggan, Sinn Féin increased their share of first preferences to 13.3% between their two candidates (with Malachy Quinn holding onto his seat) and also saw a small rise in their vote of the share in Rush-Lusk (up to 6% in 2024 compared to 4.1% in 2019).

In Rush-Lusk, Labour were 0.1% away from receiving 40% of first preferences, and local councillor Rob O’Donoghue will be looking to repeat his trick of getting 25.9% of first preferences when he faces the electorate in a general election.

Labour’s stronghold in Rush-Lusk proved too much for Sinn Féin to handle at a local level in June, marking an area where they could be vulnerable in a general election.

In Swords, where the party ran three candidates (with Marian Buckley the Sinn Féin candidate who won a seat) their share of the vote went up to a combined 15.5%, a major increase from their 7.1% haul in 2019. 

Swords saw Independents4Change councillor Dean Mulligan elected on the first count with 15% of first preferences; considering his past Dáil run when the constituency was Dublin Fingal, Mulligan could make another bid for the Dáil.

Mulligan nearly outperforming all three Sinn Féin candidates in his constituency would make him a major headache for the party should he stand in a general election, but it will depend if he runs in the West or East constituency.

Three-seaters, by their very nature, make it difficult for smaller parties such as Independents 4 Change (a party that got Clare Daly and Tommy Broughan elected as TDs on the Northside) to win a seat.

Following June’s local and European elections, which saw Daly lose her European seat, Mulligan is now Independents 4 Change’s sole elected representative at any level in Ireland.

Prior to the 2019 local and European elections, the party had 4 TDs in the Dáil and have now been reduced to a party with a sole councillor.