2014 European Parliament election in Ireland

The 2014 European Parliament election in Ireland was the Irish component of the 2014 European Parliament election and was held on Friday, 23 May 2014, on the same day as the 2014 local elections and two by-elections (Dublin West and Longford–Westmeath).^[2] The election was conducted under the single transferable vote. Counting of the votes began on Sunday, 25 May^[3] and continued until Tuesday, 27 May.

2014 European Parliament election in Ireland

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All 11 Irish seats to the European Parliament
Turnout	1,701,942 (52.4% 5.2 pp)[1]
First party Second party Third party   Leader Enda Kenny[a] Gerry Adams Micheál Martin Party Fine Gael Sinn Féin Fianna Fáil Alliance EPP GUE/NGL ALDE Leader since 2 June 2002 13 November 1983 26 January 2011 Last election 29.1%, 4 seats 11.2%, 0 seats 24.1%, 3 seats Seats won 4 / 11 3 / 11 1 / 11 Seat change 3 2 Popular vote 369,120[b] 323,300 369,545 Percentage 22.28% 19.5% 22.31% Swing 6.8 pp 8.3 pp 1.8 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Eamon Gilmore Eamon Ryan — Party Labour Green Socialist Party Alliance S&D Greens/EFA GUE/NGL Leader since 6 September 2007 27 May 2011 — Last election 13.9%, 3 seats 1.9%, 0 seats 2.7%, 1 seat Seats won 0 / 11 0 / 11 0 / 11 Seat change 3 1 Popular vote 88,229 81,458 29,953 Percentage 5.3% 4.9% 1.8% Swing 8.6 pp 3.0 pp 0.9 pp

National and regional summaries

In contrast to a poor local election result, Fine Gael retained 4 seats, remaining the largest Irish party at a European level. Despite winning the largest number of first preference votes, Fianna Fáil lost 2 seats – a result of poor candidate selection and a reduction in the number of seats. The Labour Party, bearing the brunt of voter anger with the Coalition government, suffered a meltdown, losing all three of its seats, including its seat in Dublin which it had held since 1989. The Socialist Party also lost its sole seat. The big winners were Sinn Féin and Independents who won three seats each.

In Dublin, Lynn Boylan of Sinn Féin topped the poll and a tight four-way battle for the remaining two seats ensued between Brian Hayes of Fine Gael, ex-Labour MEP turned independent Nessa Childers, Fianna Fáil's Mary Fitzpatrick and the Green Party's Eamon Ryan. Hayes and Childers won with Hayes ahead of Ryan at the final count by a margin of 1,200 votes.

In South, both Brian Crowley of Fianna Fáil and Seán Kelly of Fine Gael were re-elected while first time candidate Liadh Ní Riada of Sinn Féin won a seat. The last seat was taken by Fine Gael Senator Deirdre Clune ahead of her party colleague Simon Harris.

In the new Midlands–North-West constituency, independent TD Luke 'Ming' Flanagan topped the poll while Mairead McGuinness of Fine Gael and Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy took the next two seats. Fianna Fáil's two-candidate strategy in the constituency backfired, with sitting MEP Pat "the Cope" Gallagher narrowly losing to independent Marian Harkin. For the first time, Ireland's delegation to the European Parliament had more women than men.

Constituency changes

The Constituency Commission made changes to the constituencies of Ireland so as to reduce the total number of MEPs from 12 to 11, due to the accession of Croatia to the European Union.^[4]

The North-West and East constituencies were abolished. A new 4-seat constituency called Midlands–North-West was created. It comprised all the area of the previous North-West constituency, with the exception of County Clare which was moved to the South constituency; as well as the north Leinster part of the East constituency.^[5]

The South constituency was increased in size by the addition of counties Carlow, Clare, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow.^[5] and the number of seats increased from 3 to 4.

There were no changes to the Dublin constituency.

Results

2014–2019 European Parliament Ireland constituencies

Elections to the European Parliament in Ireland – 2014

Party		Euro party		Euro group		Party Leader	Votes[nb 1]	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Fine Gael		EPP		EPP	Enda Kenny	369,120	22.3	6.8	4 / 11
	Sinn Féin	None			GUE/NGL	Gerry Adams	323,300	19.5	8.3	3 / 11	3
	Fianna Fáil		ALDE		ALDE	Micheál Martin	369,545	22.3	1.8	1 / 11	2
	Labour Party		PES		S&D	Eamon Gilmore	88,229	5.3	8.6	0 / 11	3
	Green Party		EGP		G–EFA	Eamon Ryan	81,458	4.9	3.0	0 / 11
	Socialist Party		EACL		GUE/NGL	Collective leadership	29,953	1.8	0.9	0 / 11	1
	Direct Democracy Ireland	None		None		Jan Van de Ven	24,093	1.5	new	0 / 11
	People Before Profit Alliance		EACL		GUE/NGL	None	23,875	1.5	new	0 / 11
	Catholic Democrats	None		None		Nora Bennis	13,569	0.8	new	0 / 11
	Fís Nua	None		None		None	4,610	0.3	new	0 / 11
	Independent						328,766	19.8	8.3	3 / 11	2
Valid votes							1,656,518	97.3
Blank and invalid votes							45,424	2.7
Totals							1,701,942	100.0	—	11 / 11	1
Electorate (eligible voters) and voter turnout							3,245,348	52.4	6.2
Source: ElectionsIreland.org

1. First preference votes: Under Ireland's STV (Single transferable vote) voting system, voters number candidates in order of their preference, from Number 1 upwards. The candidate who is given a Number 1 by the voter is said to have received his (or her) first preference vote.

Post-Poll Alliance

EPP	S&D	ECR	ALDE	GUE/NGL	G-EFA	EFDD	NI	Total
4 (FG)	1 (Childers)	1 (FF/Crowley)	1 (Harkin)	3 (SF) 1 (Flanagan)				11

Voting details

Constituency	Electorate	Turnout	Spoilt	Valid Poll	Quota	Seats	Electorate per Seat	Candidates
Dublin	820,668	358,943	6,368	352,575	88,144	3	273,556	12
Midlands–North-West	1,202,997	663,703	17,258	646,445	129,290	4	300,749	14
South	1,221,683	679,296	21,798	657,498	131,500	4	305,420	15
Total	3,245,348	1,701,942	45,424	1,656,518	—	11	31

Opinion polls

Candidate polling

Dublin

Date	Polling agency	Sample size	Boylan (SF)	Hayes (FG)	Childers (Ind)	Fitzpatrick (FF)	Costello (Lab)	Ryan (GP)	Smith (PBPA)	Murphy (SP)	Tallon (Ind)	Darcy (DDI)	Whitehead (DDI)	Wise (FN)
26–28 April	MillwardBrown/Sunday Independent[6]	500	20%	15%	19%	13%	12%	11%	5%	4%	–	1%	–	–
1–2 May	RedC/Sunday Business Post[7]	500	15%	18%	10%	13%	13%	12%	9%	7%	2%	1%	1%	0%
13–14 May	MillwardBrown/Sunday Independent[8]	500	23%	22%	13%	11%	10%	7%	6%	7%	–	1%	–	–
3–15 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/Sunday Times[9]	500	19%	16%	11%	12%	7%	11%	10%	9%	3%	0%	1%	1%
23 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/RTÉ Exit Poll[10]	1000	24%	14%	11%	12%	8%	14%	6%	7%	1%	1%	1%	0%

Midlands–North-West

Date	Polling agency	Sample size	Carthy (SF)	Byrne (FF)	Flanagan (Ind)	Gallagher (FF)	Harkin (Ind)	Higgins J. (FG)	McGuinness (FG)	Higgins L. (Lab)	Mullen (Ind)	Dearey (GP)	Fitzsimons (Ind)	Gilroy (DDI)	Nic Fhearra (FN)	Fay (Ind)
26–28 April	MillwardBrown/Sunday Independent[6]	500	17%	16%	12%	9%	12%	11%	11%	4%	3%	2%	3%	1%	–	–
1–2 May	RedC/Sunday Business Post[7]	500	14%	8%	14%	9%	16%	10%	16%	5%	6%	2%	0%	0%	0%	–
13–14 May	MillwardBrown/Irish Independent[11]	500	19%	9%	15%	10%	12%	6%	13%	5%	5%	3%	1%	1%	0%	0%
3–15 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/Sunday Times[12]	500	14%	9%	17%	8%	12%	7%	21%	5%	5%	1%	0%	1%	0%	0%
23 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/RTÉ Exit Poll[10]	1000	13%	10%	20%	11%	11%	7%	16%	4%	4%	2%	0%	1%	0%	1%

South

Date	Polling agency	Sample size	Crowley (FF)	Ní Riada (SF)	Kelly (FG)	Clune (FG)	Harris (FG)	Prendergast (Lab)	O'Flynn (Ind)	Godsil (Ind)	Hartley (FF)	O'Sullivan (GP)	Van De Ven (DDI)	O'Riordan (FN)	Cahill (Ind)	Heaney (CD)
26–28 April	MillwardBrown/Sunday Independent[13]	500	36%	15%	12%	12%	7%	4%	7%	3%	2%	1%	1%	–	0%	0%
1–2 May	RedC/Sunday Business Post[7]	500	28%	14%	18%	8%	7%	9%	4%	3%	3%	6%	1%	0%	–	–
13–14 May	MillwardBrown/Irish Independent[11]	500	32%	16%	15%	10%	9%	6%	4%	2%	2%	4%	0%	0%	0%	0%
3–15 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/Sunday Times[12]	500	35%	14%	17%	10%	8%	5%	2%	2%	1%	3%	1%	0%	2%	1%
23 May	Behaviour & Attitudes/RTÉ Exit Poll[10]	1000	26%	17%	12%	9%	7%	5%	5%	1%	5%	5%	1%	1%	3%	1%

Party polling

The figures are for first-preference votes, as STV is a ranked voting system.

Dublin

Date	Source	Polling agency	Fine Gael	Labour	Fianna Fáil	Sinn Féin	Socialist	Green	PBP	Others
28 April 2014	Sunday Independent[14]	MillwardBrown	15%	12%	13%	20%	4%	11%	5%	20%
2 May 2014	Sunday Business Post[15]	RedC	18%	13%	13%	15%	7%	12%	9%	14%
14 May 2014	Sunday Independent[8]	MillwardBrown	22%	10%	11%	23%	7%	7%	6%	14%
14 May 2014	The Sunday Times[16]	Behaviour & Attitudes	16%	7%	12%	19%	9%	11%	10%	16%

Midlands–North-West

Date	Source	Polling agency	Fine Gael	Labour	Fianna Fáil	Sinn Féin	Green	Others
28 April 2014	Sunday Independent[17]	MillwardBrown	22%	4%	25%	17%	2%	30%
2 May 2014	Sunday Business Post[15]	RedC	26%	5%	17%	14%	2%	36%
14 May 2014	Sunday Independent[18]	MillwardBrown	19%	5%	19%	19%	3%	34%
14 May 2014	The Sunday Times[16]	Behaviour & Attitudes	28%	5%	17%	14%	4%	35%

South

Date	Source	Polling agency	Fine Gael	Labour	Fianna Fáil	Sinn Féin	Green	Others
28 April 2014	Sunday Independent[17]	MillwardBrown	30%	4%	39%	15%	1%	11%
2 May 2014	Sunday Business Post[15]	RedC	33%	9%	31%	14%	6%	8%
14 May 2014	Sunday Independent[18]	MillwardBrown	34%	6%	34%	16%	4%	6%
14 May 2014	The Sunday Times[16]	Behaviour & Attitudes	35%	5%	36%	14%	3%	8%

See also

• 2014 Northern Ireland constituency result

Notes

1. Note that parties (other than independents) are initially ordered by number of seats won, followed by number of first preference votes ^{[nb 1]} if number of seats won is the same. Here Fine Gael and Sinn Féin are shown ahead of Fianna Fáil, who got more first preference votes, but won fewer seats.
2. Popular vote means First preference votes. ^{[nb 1]}