Dublin West ballot paper fills up

The Social Democrats are looking to make an electoral breakthrough in West Dublin at the next general election.

The party has selected their local election candidate Ellen Murphy as their candidate in the five-seater of Dublin West. 

Murphy was unsuccessful in her bid to win a seat in Ongar in June, gathering 4.6% of first preferences, a modest increase from the 4% showing by the party in the area in 2019.

Murphy ended up lasting until the final round of counting but was eliminated on the final count.

As Murphy progressed through the electoral race, she picked up transfers from the Greens, Sinn Féin and most notably, Solidarity.

After Solidarity’s candidate Kate Relihan was eliminated with 588 votes, 241 of those went towards Murphy, more than any other candidate that was remaining in the race.

Murphy said “it is a genuine honour to have the opportunity to stand for the party in the constituency I have lived in for most of my life.

“While Dublin 15 is a great place to grow up or raise a family, for my generation it has become almost impossible to afford to buy or rent a home in the area. It is hardly surprising that so many people in their twenties and thirties, like me, are still living in the childhood bedrooms we grew up in.

“Others feel they have no choice but to move away from their local communities – often outside the country – to live independent lives. This is the generation that the Social Democrats will always stand up for,” she said.

Murphy identified pressure on school places, poor access for disability and special education supports and weak public transport as the main issues that Dublin West voters want to be tackled.

Party leader Holly Cairns said, “Ellen has been involved in community activism for all her adult life and would make an excellent TD for Dublin West.”

“Through her past work as a trade union organiser and member of the Together for Yes campaign, it is clear that she shares the party’s values of equality, inclusiveness and fairness.

“Ellen would be an energetic and empathetic new voice in politics if elected to Dáil Éireann. I am delighted she has put herself forward as our general election candidate in Dublin West and wish her every success in her campaign.”

As we covered elsewhere in this week’s West edition, Social Democrats and Solidarity/People Before Profit enjoyed a strong overlap in each other’s preferences and that may be the key to success for the Soc Dems in a general election context.

Elsewhere in the other constituencies covered by Dublin West at a local level, councillor Cat O’Driscoll won a seat for the party in an incredibly competitive Cabra-Glasnevin, and had similarly decent debut outings in Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart and Castleknock.

In the former, Neil Dowling scored 5.9% of first preferences while in Castleknock Luke Daly picked up 3.6% for the party.

In both cases, the party was appearing on the ballot for the first time.

Dublin West is being upgraded to a five-seater which marks a chance for smaller parties such as the Social Democrats to potentially win a seat.

Dublin West was a three-seater from 2002 to 2011, and it being upgraded to a five-seater is proof of the rapid population growth that has happened in the area over the last 20 years.

Dublin West falls into the jurisdiction of both Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council.

The constituency is one of the most sprawling in the country, taking in Phoenix Park, Ashtown, Castleknock, Blanchardstown, Ongar and Clonsilla.

Indeed, there was annoyance locally that Dublin West was the recipient of an extra Dáil seat following Dáil constituency redraws last year, with arguments being made that Dublin Central should have been the recipient of an extra Dáil seat as it has also seen major population growth in recent times.

In 2020, when Dublin West was a four-seater, the Social Democrats were sandwiched between Aontú’s candidate Edward Mac Manus (who will now be running for the party in Dublin North West) and former presidential candidate Peter Casey.

On that occasion, the party received 1.9% of first preferences.

Murphy joins a ballot paper that contains two Sinn Féin candidates (incumbent TD Paul Donnelly and councillor Breda Hanapy), Labour looking to win the seat for the first time since 2016 (Castleknock councillor John Walsh) and freshly-appointed Green leader Roderic O’Gorman recovering off the back of bruising election losses for the party locally.

June’s local elections proved that the Social Democrats are nipping at the heels of the Greens for the soft/left progressive vote that proved so potent in the 2019 and 2020 elections, but have had a harder time breaking down the Labour machine in the area.

Fianna Fáil will be running the newly-minted Minister for Finance Jack Chambers, while Fine Gael are not selecting their candidates until mid-September where it is expected Senator Emer Currie will be chosen alongside a running mate in Leo Varadkar’s seat.

Varadkar announced in July he would not be seeking re-election as a TD.

Currie was Varadkar’s running mate in 2020 and was unsuccessful in winning a second seat for Fine Gael in 2020 amid the Sinn Féin wave which saw Paul Donnelly elected on the first count.

Having served as a Senator since 2020, Currie’s public profile has grown in the interim and is expected to be one of Fine Gael’s two picks

.Elsewhere, Aontú, who won two council seats in Dublin 15 in June, will be running their councillor Ellen Troy while it is widely expected that Solidarity councillor and former TD Ruth Coppinger will be making a general election bid.

Umar Al-Qadri is the first independent candidate to declare their candidacy in Dublin West.

Al-Qadri, who unsuccessfully ran for a European seat in June, will be looking to become the first independent TD in the history of Dublin West.