{"id":464065,"date":"2026-05-23T23:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464065\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:49:10","slug":"ennis-closing-in-on-dublin-central-bye-election-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464065\/","title":{"rendered":"Ennis closing in on Dublin Central bye-election victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis has taken a commanding lead in the Dublin Central bye-election and is closing in on victory after eight counts.<\/p>\n

Mr Ennis leads Sinn F\u00e9in’s Janice Boylan by 1,096 votes with the final count to come later tonight.<\/p>\n

He topped the poll after the first count, coming in 555 votes ahead of Ms Boylan in second place.<\/p>\n

The Green Party’s Janet Horner was excluded after the eighth count.<\/p>\n

Her votes are currently being distributed.<\/p>\n

Independent candidate Gerard Hutch was excluded after the seventh count.<\/p>\n

\"Dublin<\/p>\n

Mr Ennis topped the poll in the first count, receiving 4,903 first preference votes, ahead of Ms Boylan on 4,348 votes.<\/p>\n

Green Party candidate Janet Horner came in third place after the first count with 2,907 votes, ahead of Independent Gerard Hutch who received 2,817 votes.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael candidate Ray McAdam received 2,659 votes, while the other Government party candidate, John Stephens of Fianna F\u00e1il, received 1,049 votes, or 4.2% of first preference votes.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il lost its deposit after Mr Stephens was excluded from the race after count two.<\/p>\n

He was excluded with a total of 1,120 votes – below the threshold to save the deposit.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Salthill where the Galway West vote count is taking place, Miche\u00e1l Martin said his party will reflect on the results of the bye-elections.<\/p>\n

Asked about his party’s low first preference share in Dublin Central, Mr Martin said there were “historic problems” in Dublin Central.<\/p>\n

\"Sinn
\nJanice Boylan with Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald at the count centre<\/p>\n

Pointing out that the party last won a D\u00e1il seat there in 2007, he said: “We have a weakness there\u2026 so we have a lot of work to do there and we know that.”<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve been through bye-elections where we did poorly… modern politics is very fragmented and in some instances it will take two to three electoral cycles to get elected,” he said.<\/p>\n

Follow live updates on the Galway West and Dublin Central bye-elections<\/a><\/p>\n

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald looked forward to the party’s performance in the next general election as a barometer, when asked if she was concerned by her party’s drop in votes in Dublin Central since 2020.<\/p>\n

“I would humbly suggest to you that when a general election comes, when a general election lands, watch and see how we perform,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms McDonald added she is “absolutely determined” that at the next general election “will see the back of Fianna F\u00e1il Fine Gael government”.<\/p>\n

The Sinn F\u00e9in leader said her party is “building”.<\/p>\n

She said Sinn F\u00e9in will “go at it again and we’ll build again, and more successfully again” in Dublin Central.<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats increased its share of first preference votes in Dublin Central by 6.4% from the last general election, with the Green Party also seeing an increase of 5.7%.<\/p>\n

\"Dublin<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in was down 5.9% on its general election performance in the constituency, when party leader Mary Lou McDonald was elected.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Social Democrats TD for the constituency Garry Gannon said that the party is “obviously delighted” with the tally.<\/p>\n

“It is a real endorsement of the type of politics Social Democrats stand for and Daniel too,” he said.<\/p>\n

The turnout stood at 43.5%, compared with 52.3% in the 2024 General Election.<\/p>\n

The bye-election was caused by Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe leaving politics for a senior role in World Bank in the US.<\/p>\n

\"Results<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis has taken a commanding lead in the Dublin Central bye-election and is closing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-464065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}