2019 news review: Sea change in Kildare County Council election

The Green Party, the Social Democrats and women were the big winners of the 2019 local elections to Kildare County Council.

The biggest loser in this election was Sinn Féin who returned neither of their sitting councillors and in the space of five years from the previous local elections in 2014 went from having five county councillors to one, new councillor Patricia Ryan.

But the overriding trend was a move away from protest politics of 2014 to very clear move towards green politics.

While the success of the Green Party, and the runaway success in particular of Vincent P Martin who topped the poll in Naas was a headline moment, the quieter, more politically astute movement of the Social Democrats through the counts saw them overtake the Greens in the council with four newly elected members versus three for the Greens.

The Social Democrats have impeccable green credentials which suggests that the trend towards environmental concerns is deeper and more fundamental than the election of three members of the Green party.

Arguably the election of Labour newcomer, and latecomer Ciara Galvin who campaigned on overtly green issues in her last-minute campaign reinforces this impression.

There has been a considerable surge also in women on Kildare County Council.

Women formerly made up 11 (27.5%) of the last 40 seat council.

But the results of the 2019 count indicated a considerable change.

Female representation rose from 11 to 16, or from 27.5% to 40%.

In Athy LEA, women make up two out of five elected members, Vera Louise Behan and Aoife Breslin, while in Kildare they were three out of five (Anne Connolly, Patrica Ryan and Suzanne Doyle) and in Celbridge they were three quarters of the total, with three out of four (Ciara Galvin, Ide Cussen and Nuala Killeen).

In Naas women made up three out of seven (Anne Breen, Carmel Kelly and Evie Sammon), while in Maynooth they were one out of five (Angela Feeney) and Leixlip had one out of three (Vanessa Liston). Newbridge LEA have three women out of six members, or half of those elected (Tracey O’Dwyer, Peggy O’Dwyer and Fiona McLoughlin Healy, who topped the poll there).

But perhaps the really interesting statistic is the proportion of successful female candidates vs men.

Some 28 of the 90 candidates in Kildare in these elections were women, and 16 were elected, which means that almost 60% of all women candidates were elected.

By contrast, only 24 of the 62 men who contested the election got elected which is 40%.

Women were considerably more likely to get elected than men, in fact, almost 50% more likely.

Naturally the calibre of the female candidates who ran was very important, but the result indicates that the appetite for and attitudes to female candidates has changed considerably even in the past 10 years.

Several sitting county councillors lost their seats, to the surprise of many.

These included Thomas Redmond, SF, in Athy, Reada Cronin, SF, in Maynooth, Teresa Murray, Ind, in Maynooth and Anthony Larkin, Ind, Leixlip.

But there are also 19 new councillors with three from the Green Party, four for the Social Democrats, three Labour Party, four for Fianna Fail and five for Fine Gael

That means that almost half of the entire 40 strong council has changed.

The political landscape of the council has changed considerably as a result of the election, not least with the emergence of the Social Democrats and the Greens, two parties who had no representatives there prior to the May 24 vote.

Fianna Fail is now the biggest party in the chamber with 12 members, following closely by Fine Gael on 11.

The Labour Party has five and the Social Democrats have four.

The Green Party has three while Sinn Fein has one.

There are four indpendents, a considerable reduction over what was there before the election.

Since the election, Suzanne Doyle, FF, has been the presiding mayor.