Election 2024 has seen a number of ministers in the outgoing government lose their seats, with Fianna Fáil minister for health Stephen Donnelly also in danger of losing his Dáil seat in Wicklow late on Sunday night.
Wicklow was considered a highly competitive constituency in this election with five incumbent TDs chasing four seats on offer after the number of seats were reduced in a redrawing of constituencies last year.
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris topped the poll in Wicklow and was elected on the first count with 16,869 votes, the third highest first preference vote recorded by a politician in the country.
After count seven on Sunday night Delgany-based Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore and Bray-based Sinn Féin TD John Brady were on course to retain their seats.
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Mr Harris’s running mate Cllr Edward Timmins (FG) was in pole position to take the fourth and final seat, with 1,320 votes separating him and Mr Donnelly. Outgoing Green Party TD Steven Matthews was set to be the latest of his party to lose his seat.
Speaking on Sunday evening as counting of votes continued Mr Donnelly said a strong “government vote” for Mr Harris had impacted on his own chances of re-election.
“We knew Simon would take a huge vote – a government vote, if you like – in the constituency,” he said. “It was strong actually, but when you’re sharing a constituency and a hometown with a taoiseach and moving from a five-seater to a four-seater; when you put those two things together it obviously creates a lot of pressure. We all knew it would come down to the final seat, to transfers.”
Mr Donnelly secured just 3,553 first preference votes, a 6 per cent share overall, and a fifth of the number one votes won by Mr Harris, his Cabinet colleague and constituency rival.
The government minister could join a number of other high-profile casualties in this election, including the Green Party minister for culture Catherine Martin who failed to win re-election in Dublin Rathdown and Fianna Fáil Minister of State Anne Rabbitte who lost her seat in Galway East.
Other prominent Green Party figures also failed to retain their seats, including Ministers of State Ossian Smyth and Joe O’Brien lost out in Dún Laoghaire and Dublin Fingal West respectively.
In Dublin Fingal East government backbencher Alan Farrell, the chairman of the Fine Gael parliamentary party at the tail end of the last Dáil, lost the Dáil seat he first won in 2011.
People Before Profit’s Gino Kenny, an outspoken voice on assisted dying and the decriminalisation of drugs, was a big loss for his party in Dublin Mid-West.
Violet-Anne Wynne, the former Sinn Féin TD who sought re-election as an Independent in Clare, lost out after securing just 310 first preference votes.
Cathal Berry, an Independent TD with a prominent media profile, failed to win re-election in Kildare South.
Mr Donnelly was appointed minister for health in June 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. He oversaw the successful roll-out of the Covid vaccination programme and the other notable achievements during his time at the Department of Health included the extension of free GP care to more children and promoting women’s health initiatives.
The perennial issues in health such as spending overruns in the health service and hospital emergency department overcrowding continued, however, under his watch.
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