Two Laois candidates – Fine Gael’s Conor Bergin and Sinn Féin’s Maria McCormack – are hoping to be elected to Seanad Eireann as polling closes this morning and the counting of votes gets underway in Leinster House later today.
Traditionally the Seanad has been a useful launching pad for a career in the Dáil, an obvious step up from being a councillor though not having the same status, responsibility, profile or indeed salary of a TD.
It has also often been a retirement home for politicians and many defeated candidates in the recent General Election are now seeking the consolation prize of a Senate seat.
Success for either Bergin or McCormcak would represent a significant step forward in their political careers and leave both in a strong position to be future TDs.
An elected Senator has a salary (circa €80,000), an option to take on an administrative assistant and support in a range of areas including the setting up of an office.
If the Laois candidates win a seat then it’s likely both would have a Portlaoise office. It’s all a help in terms of building their profile ahead of a future General Election campaign.
Both Bergin, who is a sitting county councillor, and McCormack, a recent General Election candidate, have been travelling the country in recent weeks seeking support from the electorate, which in their case is the sitting TDs and councillors and outgoing Senators.
It is a much smaller electorate than a General Election, with only about 1,200 voters in all, but they are dispersed across the country and getting support from their own party members is a priority.
In all there are 60 seats up for grabs in the Upper House of Parliament, though in a highly complex election, only 49 of them are filled by election.
The remaining 11 will be chosen by Taoiseach Micheal Martin after the results of the election are known. It is likely that a deal has been done with Fine Gael, whereby the two lead parties will carve up the seats between them.
In that instance it is possible for Conor Bergin not to be elected on the vocational panel that he is running for but still make it to the Seanad via the Taoiseach’s selections. A similar route for Maria McCormack as a Sinn Féin candidate is highly unlikely, to say the least.
The Seanad can scrutinise and make recommendations to legislation and can propose a new law or a change to an existing law.
It can also invite people in civil and public life to address the chamber on their areas of expertise. Senators will also be members of Oireachtas committees.
Of the 49 that are being voted upon this week (by postal vote), there are seven different panels with varying number of seats on each panel. Two of those seven panels are the University panels while the other five are referred to as the Vocational panels.
Conor Bergin is a candidate for the Administrative panel (seven seats) with Maria McCormack a candidate for the Labour panel (11 seats). The other panels are Agricultural (11 seats), Industrial (nine seats), and Cultural and Educational (five seats).
So while the two Laois candidates are both contesting for a seat in the Seanad, they aren’t competing against each other. To use General Election parlance, they are in different constituencies.
Six of the seats are reserved for the University panels (three for Trinity and three for the National University). Only graduates from those institutions can vote but only for the panel in question. For example, a UCD graduate has a vote for the National University panel but not for the Trinity one.
Turnout for these panels could be as low as 20% as many University graduates simply do not engage. Turnout for the vocational panels, which is voted entirely by politicians, will be close to 100%.
Unlike the General Election, where anybody can run, a candidate must meet the qualification for the panel in question – and obviously be nominated.
To further complicate it, there are two ways to get a nomination to run for the Seanad – an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ nomination. An inside nomination is where a candidate is nominated by four members of the Oireachtas – either a TD or an outgoing Senator.
They can only nominate one candidate each. So if a party has a total of 12 TDs and Senators, they can only nominate three candidates.
An outside nomination is from a recognised nominating body, of which there are about 100. Former Kildare South TD Fiona O’Loughlin and outgoing Senator, for example, received a nomination from the Alzheimer’s Association.
Both Conor Bergin and Maria McCormack are inside candidates and have been nominated by their respective parties.
And if all of that wasn’t enough, each panel must have a minimum number of inside and outside candidates elected.
Again, for example, there are seven seats up for grabs on the Administrative panel but three must be ‘inside’ candidates and three must be ‘outside’. It is actually possible for a candidate to be elected with fewer votes than someone on the same panel.
The counting of votes will be incredibly slow and tedious – and though we will have a first count later today or tomorrow, it could be early next week before we have final results. There could well be 30 counts on any particular panel.
Here we take a look at the two Laois candidates and what they are up against in a bit more detail.
Conor Bergin (Fine Gael) – Administrative panel; 17 candidates, 7 seats
If things had to transpire differently Conor Bergin could well have been elected a TD in November’s General Election.
After two massive showings in the Local Elections in 2019 and 2024 – a breakthrough success as a 25-year-old in 2019 and the biggest vote-getter in the county five years later – he was the favourite and in a strong position to win the Fine Gael nomination to the party’s candidate in the General.
But, in a shock announcement, he withdrew his nomination just moments before delegates were due to vote at the Fine Gael convention, leaving Willie Aird to be selected unopposed.
He appeared to have a greater number of supporters than Aird at convention but the understanding at the time was that party HQ favoured Aird. Bergin duly stepped aside and a run at the Seanad was the obvious fallback.
But it’s a big ask to win a seat on this particular panel where there are just seven seats up for grabs and 17 candidates.
Five of the candidates are outgoing Senators – two of them (Garett Ahearn from Tipperary and Martin Conway from Clare) are from Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil have three – the aforementioned Fiona O’Loughlin from Kildare and hugely experienced Senators Diarmuid Wilson from Cavan and Mark Daly from Kerry.
Sinn Féin’s Niall O’Donaghaile, who resigned in hugely controversial circumstances, and Labour’s Rebecca Moynihan aren’t running on this occasion but the party do have candidates in Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein) from Cork and Darragh Moriarty (Labour) from Dublin.
Both are their respective parties only candidates on this panel giving them a good chance.
Also running for this highly-competitive panel are former Portarlington-based Independent Kildare South TD Cathal Berry and Eileen Flynn, an outgoing Taoiseach’s pick who was the first Traveller to serve in the Seanad.
Bergin is one of six Fine Gael candidates going for this particular panel. The other three, as well as Conway and Ahearn, are Vicki Casserly from Dublin, Noel O’Donovan from Cork and Niamh Madden from Galway, all of whom were unsuccessful in the General Election.
Maria McCormack (Sinn Féin) – Labour panel; 19 candidates; 11 seats
What a whirlwind 12 months it has been for Sinn Féin’s Portlaoise-based Maria McCormack.
She endured a hugely disappointing Local Election campaign as a first-time candidate where she made little impression – before being catapulted into the General Election following Brian Stanley’s explosive exit from the party.
Though Stanley ultimately retained the seat with a degree of comfort, McCormack got almost 5,000 first preferences and considerably split the republican vote.
On the back of that she was rewarded by being selected as one of just six Sinn Féin inside candidates.
This is a more forgiving panel than others – with 11 seats and just 19 candidates.
Sinn Féin’s Chris Andrews, who lost his seat in the General Election, would appear to be their lead candidate, while McCormack has competition from her outside party colleagues, outgoing Senator Paul Gavan from Limerick and high-profile Dublin city councillor Daithi Doolan.
If the Sinn Féin machine has been behind McCormack to the same extent as it was during the General Election, then she could have a decent chance, probably to take a second seat for the party alongside Andrews.
The party would love nothing more than to have a big presence in Portlaoise and to be breathing down Stanley’s neck ahead of the next General Election.
Four of the outgoing Senators from this panel – Labour’s Marie Sherlock and Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer, John Cummins and Micheal Carrigy – were elected to the Dáil and so aren’t contesting this time while three more – Pauline O’Reilly (Green Party) and Shane Cassells and Ned O’Sullivan (Fianna Fáil) – have retired.
The highest-profile name is that of former Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte from Galway.
