While the country awaits the completion of first counts from the 43 constituencies in General Election 2024, current indications suggest that the Green Party is in a battle to retain any presence in the next Dáil.
The party went into this election with 12 seats and a place at the table of government as part of a coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
However, the party’s leadership has conceded that General Election 2024 has been a bad day at the office
Several political commentators have suggested the party will lose all its seats in the Dáil, with three or four seats being regarded as the best case scenario for the party.
The party is also not expected to pick up any seats where it currently doesn’t have any, meaning Minister of State for land use and biodiversity Pippa Hackett will not be successful in her bid for a Dáil seat.
Elsewhere, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue may have to wait a while to learn his fate; he is polling a considerable way behind Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty at present, according to tallies.
To complete the trio of ministers at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, Minister of State for new market development, farm safety, and research and development, is in the best shape of the three ministers; he is currently top of the pile in Kildare South tallies.
Other rural candidates to watch out for include Independent Ireland’s Michael Fitzmaurice, who leads the pack in Roscommon-Galway after the tallies, and looks certain to retain his seat.
In the same constituency, former Sinn Féin agriculture spokesperson Claire Kerrane is also doing well.
Sinn Féin’s current agriculture spokesperson, Martin Kenny, in Sligo-Leitrim, is in second place in the constituency, according to tallies.
In the three-seat Cork South West constituency, Senator Tim Lombard is currently polling outside of the top three places in the tally, where Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins is leading, with Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns not far behind him.
The next Dáil – the 34th – will have 174 TDs, making it the largest Dáil in the history of the state.
This means that 88 seats are needed for a majority. No party will reach that majority on its own, and even putting together a coalition that would achieve that majority could be a drawn-out process.