Irish governing Fine Gael, opposition Social Democrats share by-election spoils

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN, May 24 (Reuters) – Ireland’s governing centre-right Fine Gael and the Social Democrats, one of the country’s smaller centre-left parties, won two by-elections on Sunday, while the reputed head of a ​well-known crime family missed out on election again.

The result was a ‌blow to left-wing Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which has established itself as one of Ireland’s three largest parties and hoped to gain a seat in the Dublin Central area where leader Mary Lou McDonald is a sitting lawmaker.

A poor showing for the other ‌governing ​coalition party, Fianna Fail, in both by-elections could ⁠also add to pressure on ⁠Prime Minister Micheal Martin from some of his own lawmakers.

The victory in Dublin for the Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis adds to the momentum the party gained at the last general election 18 months ago when it ​doubled its number of seats to 11 in the 174-seat chamber.

It is now the fourth-largest party in parliament, just over a decade after its ⁠formation.

While the outcome suggested the Social Democrats ⁠won over some of Sinn Fein’s progressive voters, the main ​opposition party also lost some of its traditional working-class vote to increasingly popular ​right-wing candidates, as it did in 2024.

Gerry Hutch, who was named ‌by an Irish court in 2023 as the head of a well-known crime family in Ireland, won 11% of the first preference vote to come fourth. Hutch, who ran partly on an anti-immigrant platform, narrowly missed out on ⁠one of the four Dublin Central seats at the 2024 general election.

Hutch has denied being the leader of a crime gang in media interviews.

Former junior minister Sean ⁠Kyne of Fine Gael ‌became only the fourth government party candidate since 1982 ⁠to win a by-election. His victory in the western ​county of ‌Galway retained the coalition’s relatively comfortable majority in parliament.

Independent ​Ireland, a ⁠relatively new rural-focused party of the right that was a prominent supporter of a recent wave of public protest against surging fuel prices, ran Kyne closest.

The results underlined the fractured nature of the Irish electorate with four parties from across the political spectrum competing closely for the two seats.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; ​Editing by Nia Williams)