{"id":464700,"date":"2026-05-24T11:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464700\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T11:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:15:09","slug":"irish-gangland-figure-fails-in-dublin-byelection-bid-for-seat-in-parliament-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464700\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish gangland figure fails in Dublin byelection bid for seat in parliament | Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish gangland figure Gerry \u201cthe monk\u201d Hutch has failed in his bid for a parliamentary seat <\/a>in a Dublin byelection.<\/p>\n

The 63-year-old came fourth in a contest won by Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats, a victory for progressive politics after a campaign dominated by concerns over the cost of living and immigration.<\/p>\n

Hutch, who has been named in court as the leader of an organised crime group and was jailed for robbery convictions in his youth, ran as an independent and called for \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d to be interned in camps. He singled out people from Somalia.<\/p>\n

In the Dublin Central constituency Hutch won 2,817 first preference votes \u2013 11.3% of the total \u2013 and that rose to 4,466 after votes from eliminated candidates were transferred. It left Hutch trailing Ennis, who won 12,050 in the final count, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Janice Boylan, with 7,787, and the Green party\u2019s Janet Horner, with 5,452.<\/p>\n

Gerry Hutch ran as an independent candidate and called for \u2018illegal immigrants\u2019 to be interned in camps. Photograph: Rory Carroll\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The election was on Friday and results were announced on Saturday. Ennis promised to bring \u201cdeep humanity\u201d to the D\u00e1il and said he would do his best to represent all those who call the Dublin Central constituency home.<\/p>\n

Hutch\u2019s defeat was a relief for establishment candidates who feared that his fame and notoriety, and a sour mood to the government, would deliver a shock result.<\/p>\n

However, Hutch and another anti-immigration candidate, the independent councillor Malachy Steenson, increased their share of the first preference vote from Ireland<\/a>\u2019s 2024 general election, in which both competed.<\/p>\n

During the election, Bertie Ahern, the former Fianna F\u00e1il taoiseach, was secretly recorded telling a voter that he worried about Muslims and arrivals from Africa. \u201cWe can\u2019t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places.\u201d The current taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin,<\/a> distanced the party and the government from the remarks.<\/p>\n

The byelection was to fill the vacancy left by Paschal Donohoe, a finance minister with the ruling Fine Gael party, who quit the D\u00e1il for a World Bank job.<\/p>\n

With coffers swelled by corporate tax revenues, the centrist Fianna F\u00e1il <\/a>and Fine Gael coalition has ramped up public spending, but rising prices and a housing shortage have fuelled protests and resentment.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, told reporters she felt \u2018no pressure\u2019 after her party failed to win the seat. Photograph: Conor O Mearain\/PA<\/p>\n

The Social Democrat victory revived questions over Mary Lou McDonald\u2019s leadership of Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>, the main opposition party, which also missed out on a seat in a Galway byelection. McDonald told reporters she felt \u201cno pressure\u201d and that the party would continue building. \u201cI would humbly suggest to you that when a general election comes, when a general election lands, watch and see how we perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vote counting in Galway resumed on Sunday, with Noel Thomas of the group Independent Ireland<\/a> holding a narrow leader over Fine Gael\u2019s Se\u00e1n Kyne.<\/p>\n

Hutch has been a notorious figure <\/a>for decades. A court named him as the leader of an organised crime group and he has admitted to committing crimes. \u201cSome of them I got away with,\u201d he told RT\u00c9 in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish gangland figure Gerry \u201cthe monk\u201d Hutch has failed in his bid for a parliamentary seat in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-464700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464700","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=464700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}