European Elections 2024: 14 Irish MEP seats up for grabs as EU votes
Ireland has been allocated an extra seat in the upcoming elections, which has been given to the Midlands–North-West constituency, bringing its number of seats from four to five, while this constituency, Ireland South remains a five-seat constituency.
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.
Ireland South is a vast constituency, both by area and population.
According to the 2022 census, Ireland South has a population of 1,859,244.
Four of Ireland South’s five outgoing MEPs are seeking re-election; Billy Kelleher, Seán Kelly, Grace O'Sullivan and Mick Wallace are running again, with Fine Gael’s Deirdre Clune choosing to retire from politics instead.
Nineteen new candidates are running.
Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin are running two candidates, while Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, the Green Party and Aontú are running one each, and there are a range of independents and candidates from new parties also running.
From Fossa, in Co. Kerry, Sean Kelly worked as a primary school teacher before becoming President of the GAA from 2003-2006, where he is most remembered for his role in removing 'Rule 42' which paved the way for rugby and football to be played in Croke Park.
Now leader of the Fine Gael Delegation to the European Parliament, Seán was first elected as an MEP in 2009.
Some of his notable achievements since include securing a deal on the EU Buildings Directive, leading critical negotiations on Brexit Trade enforcement laws to safeguard the proper functioning of the all island economy and helping to secure an ambitious renewable energy target.
Mick Wallace has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019, and is a member of the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
He is one half of the Independents4Change part, along with his colleague and fellow MEP for Dublin, Clare Daly, and previously served as a member of Dáil Éireann since 2011, representing the Wexford constituency.
A lifelong activist for climate action, environmental protection, peace and justice, Grace O'Sullivan grew up and raised her three daughters in Tramore, Co Waterford.
She is a surf instructor, ecologist and green entrepreneur, who previously campaigned and worked with Greenpeace International, sailing around the world taking part in direct action against nuclear weapons testing, whaling, and seal culling.
Grace was a Senator between 2016-2019 before being elected as an MEP, and was the European Parliament’s lead negotiator for the EU’s 8th Environment Action Programme and the packaging and plastic waste regulations.
A former Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry, Billy Kelleher was elected to the European Parliament in 2019.
Prior to his election, he was his party’s national spokesperson on health as well as business, enterprise and innovation and led his party’s work on amending the Constitution with regard to women's health.
In the 2019-2024 mandate, he served on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, the Tax Committee and the Committee of Inquiry on Animal Transport, and was also a member of the former covid committee, looking at the lessons learned from the pandemic.
The youngest candidate is Lorna Bogue, a 31-year-old former call centre worker, current Cork City councillor for the South-East LEA and leader of Rabharta.
She has an MSc in Economic Analysis from the University of Limerick, and her main priority in this European campaign is to lay the groundwork for a rejuvenated political movement for workers and carers which is capable of tackling the climate crisis.
Her nomination papers were signed by more than 60 firefighters, librarians, artists, trade unionists, socialists, workers and carers, people she says do not have the political representation they require at any level of governance.
John Mullins is entering politics from a business and civic background.
John, who lives in rural Cork, has held a range of senior management positions in a variety of companies, and was awarded a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Government for sustainable investment in France.
He founded renewable energy company, Amarenco in 2013 and was nominated as an EY Entrepreneur of the year in 2019. He has also served as Chairman of the Port of Cork and was previously Chief Executive of Bord Gáis Eireann.
Cian Prendiville is a former councillor in Limerick City, where he led the anti-water charges movement and came within 300 votes of winning a seat in the 2016 General Election.
He was also heavily involved in campaigning against the cutbacks in the health services and the closure of smaller local EDs.
In recent years he has been an activist and organiser with Raise the Roof, Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and People Before Profit.
Susan Doyle is a mother of two primary school children and a solicitor in Douglas with a practice that focuses significantly on disability rights, housing, immigration and discrimination.
Through this work, she has encountered a lot of issues that she hopes to be able to change in politics.
Her goals are to improve access to housing and to ensure that people eligible for social housing are given adequate housing, suitable to their needs. She will also focus on an improvement of disability and mental health services in Cork and improved security and amenities in the local area.
A Sinn Féin member for over 20 years and a Senator for the last eight years, Paul Gavin was also a full-time SIPTU trade union official for 10 years where he worked in Organising and Communications.
He is also an Irish delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe where he has repeatedly called out the genocide in Gaza, as well as speaking up for Ireland’s neutrality.
He is a father of three young adults.
Kathleen Funchion has been a Sinn Féin elected representative for 15 years serving as councillor, TD and Óireachtas Committee Chair.
A mother of two, she is a former trade union organiser and Chair of the Committee on Children, and has championed workers’ rights and prioritised our children’s futures.
She has decided to run for Europe due to many challenges Ireland is facing - a persistent housing crisis, a health service at breaking point, and a cost of living crisis.
Her priorities, if elected, would include protecting the fishing and farming industry, ending Von Der Leyen’s leadership, opposing the EU’s drift towards militarisation and defending Irish Neutrality.
Fisherman, aqua-culturist and farmer Patrick Murphy was born and raised in Ballydehob, West Cork and is CEO of The Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation.
He is a long standing community activist and human rights advocate for people with disabilities and those in the caring professions.
He came to national prominence when he led the protest along the south coast that stopped Russian Military Naval Exercises from occurring in Irish sovereign waters off the south coast in January of 2022.
A native of Cratloe, Co Clare, Eddie Punch stepped down from his role as Secretary General of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association after 25 years to enter electoral politics.
A suckler and beef farmer, he sits on the board of Sixmilebridge Co-operative Mart, has been a member of council with the Irish Management Institute since 2021, a former member of the National Economic and Social Council, and has worked in rural development with both Laois LEADER and West Limerick Resources.
He has over 20 years of experience lobbying successive European Farm Commissioners and EU officials.
Michael Leahy was educated at UCD, University of Virginia, and Blackhall Place and graduated as an architect in 1981.
A native of Kerry who also has Tipperary roots, he has spent most of his working life in Clare, and has been President of Ennis Chamber of Commerce and a board member of an Bord Pleanála.
He is the former chairman of Clare Pro-Life, and is a founder member of the Irish Freedom Party.
Born and raised in Carlow, Cynthia Ní Mhurchú is a mother of two who has worked as a teacher, a family law barrister and a journalist with RTÉ.
It was in the family law courts, in her time as a barrister, that she saw the real impact of legislation on families, meeting people going through divorce, people losing their homes, dealing with domestic violence and a lack of opportunities.
Feeling that she could do more to help was what encouraged her to put her name forward for the European Parliament elections.
Michael McNamara has been a TD for the Clare constituency since the 2020 general election, and previously from 2011 to 2016.
He was a member of the Labour party until 2015, and as a TD was the Chairman of the Special Committee on the Covid-19 Response from 12 May to 8 October 2020.
He is a farmer and barrister who plans to prioritise agriculture and renewable energy if elected.
A dedicated human rights campaigner, Graham de Barra holds an LL.M in international human rights law and a B.A in philosophy/psychology.
In 2015, he presented to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice advocating for drug decriminalisation including cannabis cultivation, leading to the adoption of the Adult Cautioning Scheme in Ireland, aiming to reduce nonviolent drug-related charges to free up the overpopulated prison system.
He founded Help Not Harm, a nonprofit organisation which introduced Ireland's first 24-hour Peer-to-Peer drug welfare service at Electric Picnic in 2016 that led to the opening of the country's first laboratory drug testing facility.
Niamh Hourigan is a sociologist and a socialist, who worked in UCC for 16 years, finishing as the head of the sociology department, and now works in moving to Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.
A lot of her research focused on inequality, which led to her putting herself forward for the European elections, and if elected, her priorities will be fighting for a Just Transition to a greener economy, introducing a European plan for affordable housing and protecting Irish neutrality.
She has been involved with a number of organizations working on the ground in Ireland South including Cork Simon, Limerick Food Partnership, Barnardos, Threshold, GAA Strategic Planning Team.
The Echo endeavored to contact the following candidates but had not received a comment from them at the time of going to print.
Derek Blighe- Ireland First: Christopher V.S. Doyle- Independent: Mary Fitzgibbon- Independent: Ross Lahive- Irish People: Una McGurk- Independent and Ciaran O'Riordan- Independent.
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