Outgoing TDs: James Browne (FF), Verona Murphy (Ind), Paul Kehoe (FG- retiring), Brendan Howlin (Lab - retiring), Johnny Mythen (SF)
Who are the candidates running in the Wexford constituency?
- James Browne (FF)
- Cathal Byrne (FG)
- Jim Codd (AON)
- George Lawlor (LAB)
- Peadar McDonald (GP)
- Bridín Murphy (FG)
- Jason Murphy (NP)
- Verona Murphy (IND)
- Johnny Mythen (SF)
- Michelle O’Neill (FF)
- Jackser Owens (IND)
- Stephen Power (IP)
- Michael Sheehan (IND)
- Martina Stafford (PBPS)
- Mick Wallace (I4C)
- Source Wexford returning officer
Logic would suggest there are seats here for the three sitting TDs, with the fourth a scrap between Fine Gael to hold Paul Kehoe’s seat and George Lawlor to hold Brendan Howlin’s for Labour.
But the closer you look at Wexford, the more competitive and hard to predict it becomes. The competition increased with former Wexford TD and MEP for Ireland South Mick Wallace joining the race for a seat in the constituency late in the campaign.
Wallace entering the race presents a problem most immediately for Verona Murphy, a high-profile Fine Gael gene-pool Independent who otherwise would be expected to get a seat. If Wallace soaks up Independent votes and transfers, she may be in a fight – and if she goes out, her preferences could help one of the Fine Gael candidates.
The two Fine Gael candidates are close to each other geographically and neither has a significant profile, so the party will be hoping its strategy does not backfire amid tensions on the ground between the camps, as there should be enough Fine Gael votes to elect someone.
However, it is not likely to benefit from a big intra-Government transfer, with the Greens unlikely to feature strongly, and James Browne of Fianna Fáil not looking at a surplus – the addition of a running mate in Michelle O’Neill (a former high-profile football referee who ran under Murphy’s Independent banner in the locals, failing to take a seat) will further confine the Fianna Fáil vote within the party, with the addition of its former long-serving councillor Michael Sheehan compounding the issue.
Browne is strong enough to get over the line, despite losing votes in the redraw, but now has O’Neill and Sheehan – there are probably not two Fianna Fáil or gene-pool seats here. Lawlor will poll very strongly in Wexford town and is heir-apparent to Howlin but must find transfers from beyond his base.
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Running alone, Johnny Mythen’s future is likely to boil down to the overall Sinn Féin vote nationally – but the party had a pretty poor local election. Aontú’s Jim Codd got a strong 2,455 first preferences in the locals, some 700 votes over the quota, so cannot be ruled out either.
The other half of the big east coast constituency redraw – with 41 electoral districts and almost 50,000 people – hived off into the new Wicklow-Wexford constituency and entailed the loss of a seat. It was probably the most controversial redraw. It retains big towns in Wexford and New Ross, as well as the port of Rosslare, and of course Enniscorthy, but the loss of a seat and reprofiling of the constituency makes this a hard one to call – allied to the candidate strategies of the two big parties and presence of at least one major Independent brand in Murphy.
Expect to see someone take a seat here with a low first-preference vote, as candidates scrap to stay ahead of each other as the counts roll in.
Possible outcome: Independent (1), Fianna Fáil (1), Sinn Féin (1), Labour (1)