2020 Irish general election

Since the 2016 Irish general election, Fine Gael had led a minority government with the support of Independent TDs, including the Independent Alliance. It relied on a confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáil.

On 3 December 2019, a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy proposed by Catherine Murphy for the Social Democrats was defeated, with 53 votes in favour to 56 votes against and 35 registered abstentions.[7] On 9 January 2020, Independent TD Michael Collins called for a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health Simon Harris.[8] On 14 January, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar sought a dissolution of the Dáil which was granted by the president, with the 33rd Dáil to convene on 20 February at 12 noon.[9][10] The election was set for 8 February, the first time a general election was held on a Saturday since 1918.[11][12]

Dáil constituencies used in the 2020 election.

Members of Dáil Éireann known as TDs (Dáil deputies) were elected by single transferable vote (STV) from 39 constituencies with between three and five seats. Voters complete a paper ballot, numbering candidates 1, 2, 3, etc. in order of their preference. Ballot boxes are sent to the constituency count centre after polls close and are counted the following morning. Voters may mark as many or as few preferences as they wish. Each ballot is initially credited to its first-preference candidate but may be transferred on later counts to the next available preference where the first preference candidate is elected or eliminated.[13] As the outgoing Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, did not announce his retirement, he was automatically returned, and the remaining 159 of the 160 seats were up for election.[14]

The following members of the 32nd Dáil did not seek re-election.

The campaign officially began after the dissolution of Dáil Éireann on 14 January 2020 and lasted until polling day on 8 February 2020. the Polling was just over a week after the United Kingdom (which includes Northern Ireland) withdrew from the European Union, making it the first major election to be held within the EU since Brexit. The election took place on a Saturday for the first time since the 1918 election.[39] Leo Varadkar said that the change of day was to prevent school closures (many schools in Ireland are used as polling stations) and to make it easy for third-level students and those working away from home to vote.[40]

Nomination of candidates closed on Wednesday, 22 January. A record number of women were nominated, with 162 of the 531 candidates.[41] This was the first Irish general election in which there was a female candidate running in every constituency. If a party does not have a minimum of 30% male and 30% female candidates, it forfeits half of their state funding. At close of nominations, Fine Gael had 30.5% female candidates, Fianna Fáil had 31%, Labour had 32%, Sinn Féin had 33%, People Before Profit had 38%, the Green Party had 41%, and the Social Democrats had 57%, all passing the quota.[42]

Parties contesting a general election for the first time included Aontú, the Irish Freedom Party, the National Party and RISE (as part of S–PBP).

Voter registration via the Supplementary Register of Voters closed on 23 January, with very high registration taking place on the last day – Dublin City Council, for example, reporting 3,500 registrations on the final day allowed, and a total of 14,000 additional registrations, reported to be twice the normal amount for a general election.[43]

On 3 February 2020, the returning officer for Tipperary cancelled the writ of election there, as required by Section 62 of the Electoral Act 1992, after the death of candidate Marese Skehan.[44] However, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government formed a view that the 1992 provision breached the constitutional requirement that elections take place within 30 days of a Dáil dissolution, so on 5 February he issued a Special Difficulty Order allowing the election to proceed on the same date as other constituencies.[45][46][47] Skehan's name remained on the ballot paper.[48][49]

Opinion polls on voting intentions were conducted regularly. Polls were published on an approximately monthly basis by The Sunday Business Post (which uses the Red C polling company) and The Sunday Times (which used the Behaviour and Attitudes polling company for all of its polls since 2016 until its final poll prior to the election, for which it used Panelbase).

Less frequent polls were published by The Irish Times, Sunday Independent, Irish Mail on Sunday, RTÉ News, and others.

The chart below depicts the results of opinion polls since the previous general election.

Map showing the party winning the most first-preference votes in each constituency.

Polls opened at 07:00 UTC and closed at 22:00 UTC. The total poll was down by 2.2% to 62.9% compared to the previous election, despite it being held on a Saturday. However, severe weather warnings were in place over much of the country due to Storm Ciara.

Counting of the votes commenced at 09:00 UTC on 9 February and concluded at 23:59 UTC on 10 February, with Galway East being the first constituency to report and Cavan-Monaghan being the final constituency to report.[71][72]

The results of the election showed a close contest between three parties. Sinn Féin won 37 seats, a gain of fifteen over the previous election. Fianna Fáil also won 37 seats, eight fewer than they had had before. Fine Gael, the party of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, won 35 seats, twelve fewer than they had had. Among the smaller parties, the Green Party showed the largest gains, increasing from three to twelve seats, a gain of nine over the previous election. In terms of popular vote, despite their close second-place finish in terms of parliamentary seats, Sinn Féin received the most first-preference votes nationwide, though no single party secured more than 25% of the first-preference votes, nor more than 25% of the seats. According to Dublin City University political scientist Eoin O'Malley, it was the most fragmented Dáil ever, with the effective number of parties at 5.95.[73]

Seán Ó Fearghaíl was returned automatically as outgoing Ceann Comhairle; as he was a Fianna Fáil member, this gave the party 38 TDs. That number dropped to 37 when Ó Fearghaíl was re-elected as Ceann Comhairle on the first day of the 33rd Dáil.[74]

Journalists commented on the effects of Sinn Féin's late surge and unexpectedly high first-preference vote. John Drennan listed eleven constituencies where it might have won another seat had it run an extra candidate.[75] Marie O'Halloran observed that Sinn Féin transfers affected the outcome of 21 constituencies, favouring other left-wing parties.[76] Sean Murray noted that Solidarity–People Before Profit benefited most from Sinn Féin transfers.[77]

The Social Democrats had their best-ever result, with 6 seats; they attributed this to focusing their efforts on winnable seats rather than fielding candidates in every constituency.[78]

The Green Party also had their best-ever result, with 12 seats, reflecting increased interest in environmentalism and climate change in Ireland.[79][80]

Minor far-right and anti-immigration parties (the National Party, Irish Freedom Party and Anti-Corruption Ireland) fared very poorly, winning less than two percent wherever they stood. However, some independent politicians who had expressed anti-immigration views were elected, like Verona Murphy and Noel Grealish.[81][82]

33rd Irish general election – 8 February 2020 [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88]

Party		Leader	First-preference votes			Seats
			Votes	% FPv[lower-alpha 4]	Swing (pp)	Cand. [90]	2016	Out.	Elected 2020	Change
	Sinn Féin	Mary Lou McDonald	535,595	24.5	10.7	42	23	22	37 / 160 (23%)	14
	Fianna Fáil	Micheál Martin	484,315	22.2	2.2	84	44	45	37 / 160 (23%)	7
	Fine Gael	Leo Varadkar	455,568	20.9	4.7	82	49	47	35 / 160 (22%)	14
	Green	Eamon Ryan	155,695	7.1	4.4	39	2	3	12 / 160 (8%)	10
	Labour	Brendan Howlin	95,582	4.4	2.2	31	7	7	6 / 160 (4%)	1
	Social Democrats	Catherine Murphy Róisín Shortall	63,397	2.9	0.1	20	3	2	6 / 160 (4%)	3
	Solidarity–PBP[lower-alpha 3] •People Before Profit •Solidarity •RISE	Collective leadership	57,420 40,220 12,723 4,477	2.6 1.8 0.6 0.2	1.3 0.2 1.3 new	37 27 9 1	6 3 3 new	6 3 2 1	5 / 160 (3%) 3 / 160 (1.9%) 1 / 160 (0.6%) 1 / 160 (0.6%)	1 2 new
	Aontú	Peadar Tóibín	41,575	1.9	new	26	New	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	1
	Inds. 4 Change	None	8,421	0.4	1.1	4	4	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	3
	Irish Freedom	Hermann Kelly	5,495	0.3	new	11	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	Renua	Vacant	5,473	0.3	1.9	11	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	National Party	Justin Barrett	4,773	0.2	new	10	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	Irish Democratic	Ken Smollen	2,611	0.1	0.1	1	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	Workers' Party	Michael Donnelly	1,195	0.1	0.1	4	0	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	United People	Jeff Rudd	43	0.0	new	1	New	0	0 / 160 (0%)	-
	Independent	—	266,353	12.2	3.7[lower-alpha 5]	125	19[lower-alpha 5]	22[lower-alpha 5]	19 / 160 (12%)	0
	Ceann Comhairle	Seán Ó Fearghaíl	N/A	N/A	N/A	1	1	1	1 / 160 (0.6%)	0
Total Valid			2,183,489	99.20
Spoilt votes			17,703	0.80
Total			2,201,192	100	—	552[90]	158	157[lower-alpha 2]	160	2
Registered voters/Turnout			3,509,969	62.71

As there are 160 members of Dáil Éireann (including the Ceann Comhairle who casts a vote only in the case of a tie), 80 TDs are needed to form a governing coalition. A smaller group could form a minority government if they can negotiate a confidence and supply agreement with another party.

During the campaign, the leaders of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil ruled out forming a coalition government with Sinn Féin.[91] Some in Fianna Fáil were reported to favour going into coalition with Sinn Féin over renewing an arrangement with Fine Gael. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald announced her intention to try to form a coalition government without either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, but she did not rule out a coalition with either party.[91] After the results came in on 10–11 February, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar continued to rule out a Fine Gael coalition with Sinn Féin, while Micheál Martin changed tack and left open the possibility of a Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin coalition or a "grand coalition" with Fine Gael.[92] On 12 February, Varadkar conceded that Fine Gael would likely go into opposition. Varadkar argued that since Sinn Féin finished with the highest vote, it had the responsibility to build a coalition that allows it to keep its campaign promises, and that Fine Gael was "willing to step back" to allow Sinn Féin to do so.[93]

Sinn Féin have also stated an intention to form a broad left coalition; combined, left-leaning parties have 67 seats (37 Sinn Féin, 12 Green, 6 Labour, 6 Social Democrats, 5 Solidarity–PBP, and 1 Independents 4 Change), but other parties of the left have raised doubts about such a prospect. In addition, Sinn Féin would need the support of at least 13 independents (out of 19 total) to form a government.[92][94]

A Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael grand coalition would have 72 seats and so would need support from smaller parties or independents to form a government. A Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin coalition would have 74 seats, which would also require smaller party or independent support.[95] These three options in an opinion poll the week after the election received respective support from 26%, 26%, and 19% of voters, with 15% preferring another election.[96]

On 20 February, Varadkar resigned, but he and the other members of the government continued to carry out their duties pending the appointment of their successors. It was reported that Fine Gael was prepared to go into opposition.[97] On 11 March, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael entered detailed talks in order to establish a grand coalition, potentially with the Green Party, and deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland.[98][99] As of 17 March, those talks were still scheduled for later that week. However, the Green Party suggested that it would not join such a coalition, preferring a national unity government.[100] On 4 April, it was reported that FF and FG were making progress on their talks, and that the Labour Party was preferred to the Green Party as the third coalition partner due to internal divisions in the Green Party. However, the Labour Party stated that it preferred to go into opposition. Another option would be a grand coalition which could reach a majority with the support of independents, but such a coalition would be fragile. Some Fine Gael politicians predicted another election in September, which Fianna Fáil is eager to avoid.[101]

On 14 April, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael reached a coalition agreement, which includes a rotation for taoiseach. However, they lack a majority and need to bring other parties or independents into the coalition in order to form a government.[102] The Greens required an annual 7% cut to carbon emissions, among other demands, to participate as the third part of government formation; these demands did not include Green leader Eamon Ryan participating in the taoiseach rotation scheme, despite rumours to the contrary.[103][104][105] The Social Democrats, Aontú, and technical groups of independents also expressed varying degrees of interest in entering into government formation negotiations with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.[106][107][108][109]

A draft programme for government was agreed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party on 15 June 2020. It was determined that the position of Taoiseach would rotate between Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar.[4] The programme needed the approval by each party's membership. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party require a simple majority and a 67% majority, respectively, in a postal ballot of all members, while Fine Gael uses an electoral college system, with its parliamentary party making up 50% of the electorate, constituency delegates 25%, councillors 15% and the party's executive council filling the final 10%.[110]

On 26 June, Fine Gael voted 80%, Fianna Fáil voted 74% and the Green Party voted 76% in favour of the programme. Clare Bailey, the leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland - a branch of the Irish Green Party - publicly rejected the idea of the Greens being part of the coalition deal with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. She said the coalition deal proposed the "most fiscally conservative arrangements in a generation".[111] The coalition deal allowed for a government to be formed on 27 June, with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin serving as Taoiseach until December 2022.[112][113] Subsequently, the Dáil voted on 27 June to nominate Micheál Martin as Taoiseach. He was appointed afterward by President Michael D. Higgins and announced his cabinet later that day.[114]

• Government of the 33rd Dáil
• Ministers of State of the 33rd Dáil
• 2020 Irish Seanad election
• Members of the 26th Seanad
• Members of the 33rd Dáil