European Parliament constituencies
There are 3 constituencies in Ireland for the European Parliament elections, Dublin, Midlands - North-West and Ireland South.
Dublin will return 4 MEPs from the electorate of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin and the city of Dublin.
Midlands – NorthWest, comprising the counties of Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Kildare, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath and the city of Galway, will elect 5 MEPs to the new parliament, one more than in 2019.
Ireland South, made up of the counties of Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Wexford and Wicklow; the cities and counties of Limerick and Waterford and the city of Cork, will again choose 5 MEPs in 2024.
Currently, there are 21 candidates in the field for the Ireland South constituency, including outgoing MEPs, Billy Kelleher, Sean Kelly, Grace O'Sullivan and Mick Wallace. The 5th incumbent Fine Gael's Deirdre Clune, a TD from 1997 to 2002 and 2007 to 2011, having been first elected to the European Parliament in 2014 and having to wait for the finalisation of Brexit before taking her seat in fifth place, serving the area well and regularly keeping constituents informed, through TheAvondhu and other publications, with developments in Europe and beyond, declaring she would not be standing on this occasion and we wish her well.
19 contenders are in the running for the Midlands North-West 5- seater, including Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, Chris McManus and Maria Walsh, 3 of the outgoing mem
bers of the parliament. Colm Markey, Mairead McGuinness's replacement, has decided not to contest the election on this occasion.
In Dublin, 20 wannabe MEPs have declared to contest the 5 seats up for grabs, including outgoing MEPs Barry Andrews, who had to wait until Brexit was finalised before taking his seat, Ciaran Cuffe and Clare Daly. The other MEP, Frances Fitzgerald, has retired.
It's estimated 3,370,364 people are entitled to vote in Ireland in the European elections. In the region of 65,000,000 Germans will be eligible to vote.