European elections to take place in June

WHILE the date has still to be confirmed, both the European and local elections will likely be held on the same day, between June 6 and 9.

Ireland has 14 MEPs, an increase of one, with five of those seats likely to go to candidates in the South constituency.

The Electoral Commission reviewed the constituencies for the European Parliament elections at the end of November 2023, and it was recommended that the additional seat be given to the constituency of Midlands–North-West, bringing its number of seats from four to five.

With this extra seat came the transfer of County Laois and County Offaly from the South constituency, where they had been since 2019, when the South and Dublin regions both received an extra seat to replace the British MEPs.

The South constituency now contains the counties of Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, Wexford, and Wicklow, the cities and counties of Limerick and Waterford; and the city of Cork.

Who has announced they are running?

The five MEPs for the South are Fine Gael’s Seán Kelly and Deirdre Clune, Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher, the Green Party’s Grace O’Sullivan, and Independents For Change’s Mick Wallace.

Ms O’Sullivan, Mr Wallace, and Mr Kelleher have all announced that they will be running again, as has Mr Kelly, who topped the polls in 2014 and was first elected in 2004, making him the longest sitting MEP for the constituency.

The party’s other sitting MEP, Ms Clune, who served two terms from 2014-2023, but did not take her seat from the 2019 election until after the United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020, has announced that she will not contest this election.

The former Cork TD said on November 15: “Earlier this month, I informed the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, that I will not be seeking nomination from my party to contest the European elections in June 2024.

“For the past nine and a half years, I have represented the people of Ireland South in the European Parliament. Working in Brussels and Strasbourg, I have seen first-hand how Europe has played a defining role in Ireland’s emergence as a modern, open society and economy.

“Ireland’s EU journey has been nothing less than transformational. Europe has given us reach and influence in the world. It has facilitated our peace process. It has delivered on equality, opportunity, and freedom.

“Europe has also taught me that the ability to ‘compromise’ is not a weakness. It is the essence of a healthy democracy.”

Aontú announced that fishing-industry lobbyist Patrick Murphy would be the party’s first candidate to contest the EU elections.

Sinn Féin announced in December that they had selected Senator Paul Gavan to contest the elections for the Ireland South constituency.

Mr Gavan has served as a senator for the Labour panel since April 2016, and is Sinn Féin’s Seanad spokesperson for education and workers’ rights, in addition to being a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a consultative body of the Council of Europe. He told The Echo: “I want to be part of a Sinn Féin team that will deliver change by campaigning for a Europe that supports investment in public services and communities, advances workers’ rights, protects our environment, and is a voice for social justice, both at home and throughout the world.

“The European Union is at a crossroads, and we need to see a transformed European Union that is about building a better future for all, not just the few: This ambitious vision cannot be achieved by an EU that remains focused on militarisation, deregulation, and privatisation, and that is driven by a neo-liberal ideology that continues to dominate the outlook of the European political groups to which both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael belong.”

Fianna Fáil has confirmed that four candidates will contest next year’s European elections in the South constituency, with Fintan Phelan, Malcom Byrne, Margaret Murphy O’Mahony, and outgoing MEP Billy Kelleher going forward to a selection convention next year.

Ms Murphy O’Mahony is a former Cork South West TD, who became the first female in the Cork South West constituency to win a Dáil seat, in the 2016 general election, before losing it in 2020. Mr Phelan is the former Mayor of Carlow.

This will be the second time that Wexford county councillor Malcom Byrne has gone up against Mr Kelleher in the EU elections. Five years ago, Mr Byrne beat Mr Kelleher by eight votes at a Fianna Fáil selection convention, but was added to the ticket by the party’s national constituencies committee. In the election, Mr Kelleher won 11.69% of the first-preference votes, while Mr Byrne won 9.62%, and was eliminated.

Who can run?

Every Irish citizen and every resident citizen of another EU member state who is over 21 years of age, and who is not disqualified by community or national law and is not standing as a candidate in another member state, is eligible to be elected in Ireland to the European Parliament.

Certain occupations are incompatible with membership of the parliament, for example, ministers and ministers of state, members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, members of the judiciary, members and officials of various EU institutions, civil servants, wholetime members of the Defence Forces, and gardaí.

Despite this, several sitting TDs ran for the EU elections in 2019, including Mick Wallace and Billy Kelleher in the South.

Mr Kelleher made headlines in the last election for announcing his intention to run for the European Parliament, despite party leader Michael Martin saying he did not want his sitting TDs to do so.

When will the remaining candidates be announced?

Fianna Fáil has confirmed that four candidates will contest the South constituency, meaning that they are unlikely to announce any further candidates.

Sinn Féin, along with announcing that Mr Gavan will run, has also announced that the party plans to run two candidates in the Ireland South constituency, and that another convention will follow to select a second candidate.

A representative for Fine Gael, who ran three candidates in 2019, told The Echo that it will hold the selection convention for the Southern constituency next year.

A spokesperson for the Labour party told The Echo, when asked if they would be running a candidate, “Yes, we will. The internal deadline for expressions of interest was December 21 and nominations will open in January.”

The press officer for the Social Democrats confirmed that the party, which did not run a candidate in the constituency in the last election, are hoping to do so in 2024, saying: “We are hoping to run a candidate in the South constituency and will make a decision in the new year.”

Cork South West former Independent TD Michael Collins, who formed the new party Independent Ireland this year, told The Echo: “It is our full intention to run candidates in each constituency for the European elections.

“We are hopeful we will be able to select candidates early in the new year.”

Solidarity-People Before Profit confirmed that they are planning to run a candidate, and that their selection convention will take place on January 16, after which they will announce their candidate.