Tallaght Central goes under the microscope

Consistency is rare in the context of local electoral politics.

Sure, politicians may get elected time and time again, but it is rare for the constituency itself to be preserved in ember.

Between constituency boundary changes and a reduction in powers afforded to local authorities, Tallaght Central has remained remarkably consistent over the years.

Tallaght Central has existed as a 6-seater ever since 2009 and has consistently seen an average turnout of 45% based on the last five sets of local elections.

Alfred Hitchcock famously told cinema owners not to admit anyone after the first 15 minutes of Psycho as he wanted to preserve the mystery, but we will do no such thing here; a recap of 2019’s vote is crucial to understanding the nuts and bolts of Tallaght Central.

The big shake-up on the ballot is Fianna Fáil’s Charlie O’Connor announcing he will not be running again in June. 

O’Connor made the decision in mid-April after “careful consideration” and has left a large vacuum in the seat.

A TD between 2002 and 2011, O’Connor was a county councillor longer than he was in the Dáil making that kind of experience hard to replace.

O’Connor was the 2nd candidate elected in 2014 and was elected on the first count in 2019.

Fianna Fáil, at time of writing, will be running existing councillor Teresa Costello (who was elected alongside O’Connor in 2019), as their candidate.

Considering Fianna Fáil’s historic strength in the area, it would be surprising if Fianna Fáil ran just one candidate in the area, or could be reading recent polling figures in Dublin as a sign that they only have the juice to get one candidate elected here.

Fianna Fáil’s candidates got 28.4% of first preferences split across three candidates in 2019, and Sinn Féin are gunning for that chunk of the vote in June.

In recent months it has become apparent that Sinn Féin are, to borrow a term from German politics, going for a “Volkspartei” approach in June.

In political science, the “Volkspartei” (or people’s party for people who weren’t awake in Junior Cert German) refers to a broad church party where candidates of flexible ideologies all operate under the same umbrella and try to cater to as broad a voter base as possible.

Recent rumblings that Sinn Féin would be more akin to Tony Blair’s Labour as opposed to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour should they get into power is a blinking red indicator of who the party are trying to woo in June; the old reliable Fianna Fáil voter.

This political science lesson is important in the context of Tallaght Central: Sinn Féin is looking to target the previously dominant Fianna Fáil vote in the area and aims to achieve this by running four candidates.

Sinn Féin’s ticket will consist of Shane Duggan, Cora McCann, Robert Russell and Niamh Whelan.

None of the candidates has held elected office before, so one can deduce that Sinn Féin want voters to vote for the party and not the candidate next month.

Fine Gael have not been represented in Tallaght Central since 2009, and will look to local doctor Britto Pereppaddan to stem the bleeding.

Tallaght Central is part of the Dublin South-West constituency at a Dáil level and Fine Gael can point to getting Colm Brophy elected there as a TD in 2020.

Fine Gael went 10 counts in Tallaght Central in 2019 before giving up the ghost; maybe this time will be different?

There were 14 candidates on the ballot in 2019, while 2024 will see 10 candidates appear. 

With a less competitive race in 2024, Fine Gael could go the distance.

The third banana in the current government coalition, the Greens, are looking to hold onto a seat that heralded everything that went right for them in 2019.

The Greens winning a seat in Tallaght in 2019 was a sure indication that the project was hitting with the public, and Liam Sinclair was elected off the back of the green wave.

Sinclair left the party in 2021 to co-found Rabharta in protest at the Green agenda in government being watered down, explicitly stating they were a left-wing green party.

Sinclair was elected on that premise in 2019 and expanding the voter base was a key part of the Greens 2019 and 2020 electoral success.

It has now become clear that the same voter base that turbo-charged the Greens in 2019 and 2020 has left the party in droves, but there is no telling who it benefits.

The Greens will be running incumbent councillor Vanessa Mulhall in the seat (who previously ran in Lucan for the party in 2019) so between the advantage afforded to an incumbent elected rep and previous electoral experience Mulhall has the chops to retain the seat.

The Social Democrats and Labour not running candidates here should also be a boost to Mulhall’s re-election chances.

People Before Profit’s Jess Spear is running on an explicit eco-socialist platform meaning she, in essence, takes Sinclair’s spot on the ballot.

People Before Profit have, in recent weeks, reached out to Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats to take part in a vote left, transfer left pact for the locals (and possibly the general), but one gets the impression the party is keen to give Sinn Féin a bloody nose in Tallaght Central.

Sinn Féin voters of a leftist persuasion could be tempted to give Spear their first or second preference in a bid to send HQ a message.

Spear has the advantage of running in an area that is kind towards the party on that side of the political spectrum; the Solidarity branch of the party won a seat here in 2019 and came close to winning a second, while 2014’s election result saw two candidates under the Anti-Austerity Alliance banner.

Spear is the partner of TD Paul Murphy and Murphy has been hitting the campaign trail alongside her in recent weeks.

That set of circumstances is a trump card for any candidate to have, it is now up to Spear to play it. 

Aontú are running in Tallaght Central for the first time, with Saoirse Ní Chonárain running for the party.

There is no real indication of how the party will do going off previous election results because they have never fielded a candidate in Tallaght before, be it the 2019 locals or 2020 general.

Taking a rough stab at it, Aontú will scoop take the always potent frustrated independent vote or the “major parties are too woke” vote (a tactic which fell flat on its face in the recent UK local elections).

They would be well-advised to pursue the former path.