Dublin Fingal West  is a new constituency encompassing the north and west of the previous Dublin Fingal constituency as well as parts of Ballymun and Santry situated between the Airport and the city-county  boundary.

It takes in the Balbriggan Electoral Area as well as most of the Lusk-Rush area, a small part of the Swords area as well as parts of Dublin

THE BIGGEST PARTIES PER DED IN 2020

Over 90% of the votes in 2020 were cast in the Dublin Fingal constituency and 8% were cast in the city areas in Dublin North-West.  The four largest settlements (Balbriggan, Lusk, Rush and Skerries) are all situated on or near the east coast in the north-east of the constituency; the west of the constituency is mainly rural with a few villages such as The Naul, Garristown and St Margarets. The parts of Ballymun and Santry on the south-western edge of the constituency are unlikely to be able to elect a local candidate on their own vite.

Interestingly, none of the five TDs elected in the Dublin Fingal constituency in 2020 took a majority of their vote from within the boundaries of the new constituency – Louise O’Reilly (Sinn Fein) and Joe O’Brien (Greens) came closest with 48% and 46 of their tallied vote within the new constituency.

The following table lists those candidates who took over 2,000 votes in this area OR took over half their vote here in 2020. %TV (Total Vote) refers to the percentage of each candidate’s 2020 vote that lies within the new constituency, while %Q (Quota) refers to what proportion of a new quota each candidate would achieve on their tally vote.

RELEVANT CANDIDATES

SURNAME	PARTY	CONST.	TALLY	%TV	%Q
O’REILLY	SF	Dub. F.	7,331	48%	1.07
O’BRIEN	GP	Dub. F.	3,688	46%	0.54
MURPHY	IND	Dub. F.	3,357	93%	0.49
O’BRIEN	FF	Dub. F.	2,364	24%	0.34
UMHUM.	S-PBP	Dub. F.	269	60%	0.04
SWEETMAN	IND	Dub. F.	204	76%	0.03
SMITH	IND	Dub. F.	34	52%	0.00

Both O’Reilly and O’Brien have interesting choices to make – O’Reilly could get elected in either constituency (though she is based in the Balbriggan/Skerries area i believe), while O’Brien faces a challenge whatever he chooses. His vote is somewhat unusual amongst Green Candidates in that he seems to have a strong base in his home town of Skerries where he took over a third of the vote

Balbriggan area Independent Tony Murphy  – who made it to the tenth count last time – finds almost all of his vote in the Fingal West area and is in third position of the 2020 contestants. He and Louise O’Reilly took nearly three-quarters of the vote in Balbriggan town between them. None of the other contestants who took a majority of their vote in the new area took more than 500 votes.

In the areas just outside the city boundary, Sinn Féin took half the vote in the Ballymun part, while they outpolled by the Social Democrats in Santry.

The table below details the party support in each of the former constituency blocs that make up the new constituency, and also the proportion of the tallied vote that each constituency bloc contains. For instance just under 10% of the vote in the new constituency was cast in Dublin North-West in 2020 and Sinn Féin took 39% of the vote there.

Only parties with sufficient support in this constituency are afforded a  column. CONST stands for constituency and PROP for proportion.

PARTY SUPPORT

CONST	PROP	SF	FF	FG	GP	OTH	IND
DUB F	92%	28.9%	15.1%	12.6%	14.6%	12.1%	16.7%
DNW	8%	38.7%	13.7%	9.7%	5.5%	31.2%	2.2%
TOTAL	100%	29.7%	14.7%	12.7%	13.8%	13.5%	15.6%

The only certainty here on the 2020 tallies is that Sinn Féin will take a seat, beyond that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Greens and Independent Tony Murphy will all be jostling for the remaining two seats. It should be note that both Fianna Fail’s and Fine Gael’s vote is split between two candidates which will make their task harder.