Election 2024: Will the rise of the independents continue?
Mick Wallace is looking to regain the seat in Wexford he vacated in 2019. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Throughout the 2024 local election, one storyline seemed to encapsulate much of the mood of the public — the rise of the independents.
Overall, they took over 200 seats in some guise in the local elections, accounting for nearly one in four first preferences.
That trend hasn't really slowed down in the subsequent polling with independents and others operating in the mid to high teens or low twenties for much of the recent weeks. It is likely that independents will have a large say in the make-up of the next Dáil and will potentially hold a strong hand whenever the programme for government is negotiated.
Here are some of those who will be worth watching this weekend.
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Mick Wallace is back. The former TD and MEP lost his European seat in June, but is looking to regain the seat in Wexford he vacated in 2019. The vacation of that seat led to the 2019 by-election, which propelled Verona Murphy into the national headlines.
During that campaign, Ms Murphy said that asylum seekers who come to Ireland need to be “deprogrammed” as they may have been influenced by Islamic State, comments for which she was subsequently dropped from the Fine Gael ticket for the 2020 general election.
In that election, Ms Murphy took 7.8% of the vote and held off Fianna Fáil's Malcolm Byrne — who had beaten her in the previous November's by-election — to take a seat. Since then, she has become an outspoken member of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee and saw five independents she backed in the locals elected to the council.
With one seat fewer — north Wexford has been hived off to make the Wicklow-Wexford constituency — this could be a battle for one seat or both could be elected.
Mr Wallace's fellow former MEP Ms Daly has opted to leave her Dublin Fingal base and run in Dublin Central. Ms Daly said she had been approached by local activists in a bid to continue the constituency's long independent tradition — the home of Tony Gregory and Maureen O'Sullivan is currently home to no independents.
Ms Daly served as a TD for eight years from 2011 to 2019 before being elected to the European Parliament in 2019. She lost her seat in that parliament in June's elections.
In a statement, Ms Daly said that after 25 years as a public representative in North Dublin — at local, national, and European level — she had "thought long and hard about whether to contest the next general election".
She has rarely been a quiet participant in parliament and her return would provide whomever makes up the government with a frequent and vocal critic.
A former Fine Gael councillor, Mr French ran as an independent in June's elections and received over 4,000 votes in the Trim area. He is attempting to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of his former running-mate Damien English.
Mr English decided to leave politics earlier this year, one of 18 Fine Gael TDs not contesting this time, and Mr French's entry into the race creates an interesting dynamic with his former party's candidate, Linda Nelson Murray.
Were he able to hold his vote in Trim and attract votes from the likes of Navan, he would be in a position to get close to the 5,400 first preferences that Mr English achieved in 2020. However, the constituency has never elected an independent since its formation in 2007.
The former junior minister could be set to pull off a political comeback, having lost his seat in 2020.
He had left the Independent Alliance following a number of reported spats with Shane Ross ahead of the election in 2020.
Having picked up 3,800 first preferences in the Athlone electoral area in June, he is strongly positioned to win back his seat.
Another former Fine Gael representative, Mr Callan left Fine Gael in 2014 in protest at the proposals around water charges. At the time, he was mayor of Drogheda, a position he has held three times.
He contested the 2016 general election as a member of the Independent Alliance, taking 5.2% of the county's vote and was re-elected to the council in 2024 with 11.8% of Drogheda's vote.
The five-seat Louth constituency is already finely balanced given that three sitting TDs — Sinn Féin's Imelda Munster, Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd and independent Peter Fitzpatrick — are not running again. Local wisdom suggests that Sinn Féin should hold on to Ms Munster's seat, but the other two are up for grabs, with Mr Callan a strong possibility.
Another former Fine Gaeler, Ms Toole quit the party in 2019 to run as an independent for the council, winning 15.7% of the vote in Ratoath, taking over 3,100 votes in June — nearly two quotas.
Her campaign was launched by senator Sharon Keogan and a number of independent councillors, something of a mirror of Ms Murphy's alliance in Wexford, which many independents see as a replicable template.
The constituency has an extra seat this time around and while the three biggest parties would hope to add their second candidates to sitting TDs Thomas Byrne, Helen McEntee and Darren O'Rourke, the fourth seat could come down to Ms Toole and Aontú's Emer Toibín, sister of party leader Peadar.
Mr Stanley resigned from Sinn Féin last month amid a bitter dispute over an internal party investigation into a complaint made against the Laois TD. He described the investigation into his conduct as a “kangaroo court,” with the party later handing the draft report to Gardaí over the allegations made against him.
The draft report itself had made a finding of “gross misconduct” against Mr Stanley, concluding that his actions constituted “sexual harassment” after the complaint was made by a woman following a meeting with the Laois TD in October 2023.
He announced in October he would run as an independent candidate and is widely tipped to keep his seat, saying that further investment in Laois hospital was a priority, alongside speeding up the Portarlington and Mountmellick flood relief schemes.
Dublin Bay North, the expansive constituency that covers much of the city's northside, has three TDs elected in 2020 who will not be running. Sean Haughey of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's Richard Bruton have opted to retire, while Aodhán Ó Riordáin of Labour was elected to Europe.
While Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are confident of holding seats, the fifth seat could go anywhere, with both Mr Lyons and Mr Heneghan tipped. Mr Lyons topped the poll in Artane-Whitehall and his volunteer-driven campaign has high hopes.
Mr Heneghan is another popular independent who bagged 2,452 votes in Clontarf in June and has the backing of former junior minister and local independent Finian McGrath. His social media videos, featuring an ear-worm of a campaign song, have seen his reach go beyond the constituency.
