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WITH A NEW Taoiseach, local and European elections and a general election, it’s fair to say that 2024 has been a bumper political year in Ireland – and it’s not over yet.
As the year draws to a close, the formation of a new government has been put on hold until January, though we’re now fairly certain that the 34th Dáil will most likely be led by a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Independent administration.
Given everything that happened, we thought we would reflect on the biggest moments of the political year through twelve photos.
With so much having happened since, you would almost forget that two referendums took place at the beginning of the year.
In March, the country was asked to vote in the Family and Care referendums to change two constitutional amendments, one of which related to the definition of family and the other of which related to the provision of care in the home.
As indicated by the photograph, both referendums were comprehensively rejected by the electorate. In fact, the Care Amendment garnered the highest percentage of No votes of any referendum in the history of the state.
Less than two weeks after the referendums were defeated, Leo Varadkar announced that he would resign as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader. It came as a shock to the country, and to his colleagues.
In an emotional statement outside Government Buildings on 20 March, Varadkar said that the reasons for his decision to step down were “both personal and political, but mainly political”.
“After seven years in office, I am no longer the best person for that job,” he said.
While he said at the time that he would remain a TD for his Dublin West constituency, Varadkar announced in July that he would not contest the next general election. He formally offered his resignation to President Michael D Higgins on 8 April.
Following Varadkar’s resignation, Fine Gael braced itself for a leadership contest – but in the end, only one TD put his name forward for the job.
Simon Harris was formally announced as the party’s new leader on 24 March, with the Wicklow TD becoming the country’s youngest ever leader on 9 April after he was elected Taoiseach.
“Today I accept this new role in a spirit of humility, ready for the challenge, and full of energy and determination about what can be achieved,” he said.
Amidst the ongoing war in Gaza, this year saw Ireland formally recognise the State of Palestine on 29 May in a coordinated announcement with Spain and Norway, which saw the Palestinian flag flying outside Government Buildings alongside the tricolour, the flag of Europe and the Ukrainian flag.
On the day of the announcement, Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dáil: “Today is a historic day but it takes place in the most sombre of circumstances as we witness the humanitarian catastrophe unfold in Gaza and Rafah.
He said there is an onus on “every country” and on the EU to use “every lever at its disposal to bring about a ceasefire”.
After the referendums in March, there was more counting to be done three months later in the local and European elections – and with 949 local council seats up for grabs, as well as 14 MEP positions, count staff had a bit more work to do this time around.
On the whole, Fianna Fáil narrowly won the battle to become the biggest party, securing 248 seats compared to Fine Gael’s 245.
Labour took 56 seats, the Social Democrats gained an extra 16 councillors to reach 35, and new party Independent Ireland secured 23 seats. The Greens lost 26 seats to finish with 23.
While Sinn Féin came out with 102 councillors, an increase from the 81 council seats won in 2019, it admitted that the gains were not to the extent it had expected. The result was coupled with a fall in the party’s popularity among voters in opinion polls.
Leaving aside their performance in the local elections, it would be fair to say that Sinn Féin had a tough year politically after facing down a series of separate controversies just weeks out from the general election.
Brian Stanley resigned from the party in October after the party began investigating him on foot of a complaint against him a number of weeks previously (details of which Stanley denies).
Separately, the party’s handling of a former party staffer who pleaded guilty to child sex offences came under scrutiny. Michael McMonagle was arrested in August 2021 and jailed in November this year for child sex offences.
Two Sinn Féin press officers resigned after it emerged they had provided work references for McMonagle. Party leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill apologised for the actions of the two former press officers, saying that the references were provided without clearance from the party.
In addition to that, it emerged in October that former Sinn Féin senator Niall Ó Donnghaile had resigned from the party in 2023 after allegedly sending inappropriate messages to a 17-year-old. This culminated in party leader Mary Lou McDonald making a statement in the Dáil following calls for clarity by opposition parties.
Despite the controversies and questions over McDonald’s leadership, Sinn Féin took 39 seats in the election, becoming the second biggest party in the Dáil, and the party president has said she plans to stick around for the next five years.
There have been some memorable controversies in Ireland surrounding public spending projects, such as the infamous Dáil printer that wouldn’t fit in the room it was meant for in 2019, and the ongoing saga of the cost of the National Children’s Hospital.
This year, there was widespread disbelief and outcry over the €336,000 price tag attached to the Leinster House bike shelter.
Needless to say, the matter was discussed at the Oireachtas Finance Committee, where the Office of Public Works chair John Conlon said the cost would’ve been “far, far lower” if it were constructed at the location it initially proposed.
During the appearance, it emerged that a new security hut at Government Buildings had cost €1.4 million. Micheál Martin, who was the Tánaiste at the time, deemed the cost “ridiculous”.
After months of speculation about when the country would go to the polls, Simon Harris finally answered the question on 8 November and declared that the general election would be held on 29 November.
Fine Gael had been riding high in the polls for weeks, and the party had hoped that the so-called ‘Harris hop’ would translate into votes. However, during a fairly lacklustre three weeks, it was an awkward encounter by the Taoiseach that became the standout image of the election campaign.
Harris was widely criticised after walking away from Charlotte Fallon when she asked him about a lack of support for carers and care workers.
He subsequently apologised to the carer and said he had “let myself down”, but the damage was done. Fine Gael finished third in the election – and ten seats behind Fianna Fáil.
Another feature of the general election campaign was one particular candidate who entered the race at the last minute. Gerry Hutch’s declaration that he would be contesting the Dublin Central constituency came as a surprise to many.
A notorious gangland figure believed by gardaí to be the leader of the Hutch organised crime group, the 61-year-old known as ‘The Monk’ was arrested and charged in Lanzarote by Spanish police investigating alleged organised crime activity in October.
He was subsequently released on €100,000 bail and registered his candidacy, giving his profession as “consultant”.
In the end, Hutch narrowly missed out on a seat in the Dáil. He won 3,096 first preference votes, and transfers put him on 5,321 votes by the eleventh and final count in the constituency. He finished behind Labour’s Marie Sherlock on 6,102 votes, who took the seat.
At the beginning of the year, the Green Party had 12 seats in the Dáil and were part of the coalition government. But as 2024 draws to a close and a new year approaches – and with it a new government – the party has only one seat remaining after being almost wiped out in the general election.
Across the weekend of counting, ministers, junior ministers and TDs who had become familiar names and faces since the 2020 election lost their seats one-by-one.
Roderic O’Gorman is now the last Green standing, after the party leader narrowly held onto his seat on the 13th count in Dublin West. Speaking during the count, he said there was a long history of smaller parties having a hard time while in Government.
“We hoped going into the election that we could buck that trend, but we haven’t been able to do that today.”
Politically speaking, it seems that 2024 may have been Micheál Martin’s year.
Fianna Fáil gained 10 seats in the general election after a campaign that saw no real blunders for the outgoing Tánaiste, who was fairly solid if unshowy in his leadership. The gains came despite an exit poll predicting that they would be the third largest party.
It also followed success at the local elections in June which saw the party win the highest number of council seats.
Looking ahead, Martin looks set to be the next Taoiseach – but whether he’ll be sharing with Simon Harris has yet to be officially decided.
Even though we still don’t have a government, the 34th Dáil did find time on 18 December to elect a new Ceann Comhairle – and the choice gave the clearest indication yet as to who would make up the numbers for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Independent TD Verona Murphy became the first woman to be elected to the role of Ceann Comhairle in the Dáil’s 105 year history after a secret ballot. She had been endorsed by Micheál Martin and Simon Harris’s respective parties.
The Wexford TD said she will strive to be “fair and impartial” in her new role, as well as “even-handed and even-tempered”.
Her election is seen as a significant step forward in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s talks with the regional independents, who seem all but guaranteed to form the next government – but we’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
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Old govt same as the new govt. Funny how the parties who supported the two referendums and who said that “immigration is a good thing” have been re-elected in what is almost a majority. While the tiny parties who said they were the “real opposition” and said they spoke for 90% of the people couldn’t even get one seat
I could condense the political year into one photo of a bag of BS…. But Anne Rabbittee might take offence.
@Paul Linehan: true. Now being trundled into the retirement home for the bewildered and rejected – the Seanad – for more nosebag at our expense. Weapon.
@Paul Linehan: And no doubt give a poor act of distress as to how traumatising it was.
@Paul Linehan: agree
No comments allowed in the arts article preventing anyone saying that Mescal cannot carry a movie on his own .Compared to Emmet J Scanlan and Lawlor he doesn’t rate. Just sayin
Needs more Eoin Hayes and Eoghan Murphy numpty factor visuals.
These guys should work for Birds eye because they talk some waffle.
@Shane O Mac: Spot on. Photos summation as follows, a leader who was one of those who bankrupted the Nation that led to severe Austerity & many suicides. A man who denied the Bank Bailout, a man who with his wife owns multiple homes in a time of record Homelessness & Housing Crisis, a man who said a Developers contribution was only resting in their account, sharing power with a Taoiseach who turned his back on a Carer because he didn’t want to hear the truth. Now these two, do a deal with a man whom a Tribunal found was guilty of corruption & then install a person who speaks about Transparency but was guilty of Bullying & silenced the issue with an NDA. An Opposition party riddled with Paedo’s & flip flop on every issue & despite being handed an open goal, couldn’t score, Ireland today.
Same old, same old, but at least that canker, the Greens,have been sent on their way!
@Brian Hunt: Becoming bored with 100 of persistent hard won progress isn’t as exciting as changing to chaos.
@thomas molloy: ……100 years……
All fakes and phoneys.
History will call it right in the End.
No Shinners and no Greens- HAPPY DAYS!
@Trump24: plenty of paydos in Dump’s administration for you to keep up all night instead.
@Trump24: you vote, scary to even think that.
@damien leen: That Troll claims to vote for both Trump and FG.. spouts that shyte all the time and claims he never heard of Bill Tormey ..
@Troll Hunter: surprised he can even tx. Amazing wat they can train monkeys to do these days.
How did Fianna Fail win most seats? Are Irish people a bit backward?
@Mrs. O’Brien: no
@Johnny Wilson: Irish people keep voting for the party that bankrupts them, and wonder why income tax is so high in their salary lol
Gerard Hutch became the elections big story because the journalists were obsessed with him. Otherwise I guess he wouldn’t have won so many first to preference votes.
But hey, you’ve got to sell paper or web content, so anything to drive traffic.
@Jerry LeFrog: Or the sheer poverty in the north inner city but the first one is easier to claim
“Nicola Coughlan’s ‘bravery’”.
Just F.O.
The usual pathetic losers and tossers getting their mentions (Harris, Martin, O’Gorman and the rest of the clown show) along with the Journal’s compulsory mention of the Arab barbarians in Gaza and how we’re supposed to feel sorry for those animals in their terror rags when they’re getting their just deserts for massacring 1,200 innocent people and repeatedly firing thousands of rockets at civilian areas. It’s equally pathetic and equally laughable that the flag of a made-up country flies in the city centre in the place of an Irish flag.
@Frank O’Hara: In 1947/48 The UN Partition Plan for “Palestine” proposed the creation of the State of Israel and all that Jazz. Before that there was never anywhere on the map of the world, that had anything with the word ‘Israel’ in it.. Palestine existed on the World Map before that, as anyone with even a small bit of knowledge of WWII knows.
@Frank O’Hara: the people mentioned won seats. Those who you supported didn’t win one seat.
@Frank O’Hara: Your comment is repellent and especially so on Christmas Day. Human rights apply to all peoples everywhere, especially civilians ANYWHERE. Unconditional support for any government/military/country is to be rejected. I have to keep spelling this out for people who haven’t enough awareness to realise how the human brain works (clue…..it’s a limited organic machine that simplifies, converts everything into an abstraction and gets easily distracted by strong emotion). There are no ‘sides’, there are only people and the people caught in the middle are who we should be most concerned about.
@Frank O’Hara: I thought that the “israeli” flag was removed when they got upset and took their genocide-supporting ambassador home and closed the embassy?
@F1rYnpWc: Again, you made this same claim in another post buddy and just because you keep repeating something, doesn’t make it right. Why would I vote for parties like the Irish Freedom Party and the Irish National Party when they’re a bunch of Neo-Nazi dirtbag antisemites who hate free markets, free trade, globalisation, Ukraine and Israel? Give your head a shake and try to rub the two braincells together.
@Social Guy: The only “genocide” that’s happening is the imaginary one inside your mind. The population of Gaza increased by 2% every year since 1948 including this year during the war. 62,850 babies were born in Gaza over the past 12 months. Show me one shred of evidence that IDF is deliberately targeting civilians. Oh wait, you can’t because there is none. 17,000 of those dead are Hamas militants and another 10,600 of the “dead bodies” have no ID or proof that they even existed in the first place. Hundreds of female casualties are listed with the name Muhammad. 6,200 natural deaths from stage 4 cancer were added to the list. In May, Hamas were even forced to edit their own causalities numbers for women and children from 24,000 down to 12,800 because they were caught lying.
@Numinous20111: Cry more, I have no respect for any group of medieval savages who celebrated when 1,200 innocent people were raped, tortured and murdered and cheer when 9/11 happened. 85% of the population in Gaza either “supported” or “strongly supported” the October 7th massacre. 84% of people in Gaza supported the Jerusalem Yeshiva school shooting. 82-87% of people in Gaza support launching rockets into Israeli civilian and highly populated areas. Is this the attitudes of a group of people that deserving “human rights?” What about the women they stone for being raped because they have “dishonoured their family’s name” or for leaving their house without a man’s permission? Do they deserve these “human rights” you talk about? I will always give Israel unconditional support no matter what.
@Troll Hunter: Looks like you’re the only person who doesn’t know basic history buddy. In 1925, Jamal Al-Husseini, one of the leaders of the Arabs in the British Mandate, sued the British government over the term Palestine because he believed that the area was called Southern Syria and that Palestine was a term that gave legitimacy to the Jews. In 1946 at the Anglo-American Committee, the Arab representatives argued that a Jewish State should not be created because there was never an entity called Palestine. P does not exist in Arabic. Anyone with a juvenile comprehension of Arabic would know this. How would a word exist with a letter that doesn’t exist? Israel did exist before by the way. The Kingdom of Israel lasted for 400 years and the Kingdom of Judah lasted for another 200 years.
@Frank O’Hara: Your no buddy of mine. You are full of shyte.. Why don’t ya tell likes of Wikipedia, everything else about the Balfour declaration in books, all the world cartographers over the years and the UN that they all wrong, cause Frank the effin freaky fruitbat says so on the Journal.. Now flick off with yourself, look up UN resolution 181, and try and fool someone else who may be gullible enough to listen to your nonsense.
@Frank O’Hara: And I presume you weren’t at the big 75th Anniversary of the creation of Israel in 2023 either.. or you prob deny that too..
@Troll Hunter: You are a sad little pissant, aren’t you? All I’ve spoken is factual information and you’ve just got your knickers in a twist over it. Go back and read what I’ve said before you comment again, you seem to have missed the mark completely. The 1922 League of Nations (United Nations) San Remo Conference clearly laid out the borders for the British Mandate. 77% of the land was allocated as the Arab State which was to be called Transjordan and the other 23% was allocated as the Jewish State and was to be called Eretz Israel. The borders of the Jewish State were to stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River undivided. The area that you are attempting to describe is, was and always will be Jewish land. I don’t know what’s so hard to understand for you buddy.
@Frank O’Hara: United Nations was founded in 1945. You seem to have a problem with basic facts.. suppose that what happens when believe makey-up stuff supposedly from some deity.
@Troll Hunter: Are you so uneducated that you didn’t know that the League of Nations was the precursor to the United Nations? In any case, you haven’t provided any sort of coherent rebuttal to any of the points that I made. Is that because you know I’m right?
@Frank O’Hara: So you deny that Israel had its 75th anniversary last year and That UN resolution 181 does not exist. But you believe in some fairytale that some deity chose a certain bunch over all else.. and that Israel is a so called democracy, when it implemented the Nation State Law .. that states that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people.” Ffs. You lot are nothing but hippocrites , but that nothing new for extreme-right headtheballs like you.
@Troll Hunter: Name me just one legal right that the Nation State Law supersedes. Furthermore, name me one just legal right that the Nation State Law grants to Jewish people that it doesn’t to all the other minorities in Israel. I never denied that Israel declared its independence in 1948, but if I asked you when the Irish people believed that they had a right to their ancestral homeland, you wouldn’t say 1922 when the Anglo-Irish Agreement came into affect or 1949 when we became a Republic, would you? Also, I’m well aware of Resolution 181 which laid out the 1947 Partition Plan. However, it’s interesting how you blatantly left out the fact that while the Jews accepted it, the Arabs flat-out rejected it and declared war to wipe out the Jewish State, so it is null and void.
@Frank O’Hara: I don’t know if it’s the drink or what…. But effin ‘ell you seem to ave made a couple of half valid points for a change .. well done you… ! I am truly shocked… so good night and Chanukah sameach!.
@Troll Hunter: Except for the bible, the greatest work of fiction the world has ever witnessed
The middle photo tells, Ireland loves misery and hardship
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