LEO: 2024 IS AN ELECTION YEAR
Taoiseach hints at polling date to Fine Gail delegates
LEO Varadkar declared that “2024 is an election year” as he refused to rule out an early return to the polls next year.
The Taoiseach was speaking at the Fine Gael special conference on rural development in Maynooth yesterday afternoon when he set the election rumour mill into overdrive.
Fellow Fine Gael Cabinet colleague, Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney, had started the speculation earlier in the day when he told delegates an election was not far away.
The next general election is scheduled to be held at the end of February 2025 – but most political pundits believe it will be called before then. Constitutionally Mr Varadkar, as Taoiseach, is the only person that has the power to call an election and he has the discretion to call it whenever he wants. Speaking to reporters from the Fine Gael event at the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth, Co Kildare, Mr Varadkar said: “Look, 2024 is an election year. “We’re going to have local elections, we’re going to have European elections, we’re going to have an election for the Limerick Mayor, so that’s actually our focus. “I don’t know when the date of the next general election is, that hasn’t been decided yet, but it will certainly be no later than March 2025 and there’s a presidential election as well in 2025.
Uniquely we’re going to have, after a period of no elections for quite a number of years, a lot of elections really in a 12 to 18 month period.
“So, we are preparing for those elections. We’ve almost all our candidates selected for the Locals, pretty much 70%, and we’ll have all of them by Christmas.
“Just under 90% of our councillors are running for re-election. Then after that we’ll focus on plans for the general election.”
The local and European elections polling day is set to be announced for some time in May.
The Taoiseach added: “I’m 20 years in politics as of this year and I’ve been in the Dail for four terms and I’ve been through a few elections.
“Sometimes elections happen upon ya, sometimes you get to call them and it is, of course, the prerogative of the Taoiseach to seek the dissolution of the Dail.”