Leinster (European Parliament constituency)

Leinster was a constituency of the European Parliament in Ireland between 1979 and 2004. It elected 3 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the 1979, 1984 and 1989 elections and 4 MEPs in the elections of 1994 and 1999 using the single transferable vote form of proportional representation (PR-STV).

Leinster
European Parliament constituency
Shown within Ireland
Member state	Ireland
Created	1979
Dissolved	2004
MEPs	3 (1979–1994) 4 (1994–2004)
Sources

History and boundaries

The constituency was created in 1979 for the first direct elections to the European Parliament. It comprised the counties of Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow from the historic province of Leinster excluding the County Dublin area.[1] It was abolished under the European Parliament Elections (Amendment) Act 2004 and succeeded by the new East constituency.[2]

MEPs

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for Leinster 1979–2009
Key to parties   FF = Fianna Fáil   FG = Fine Gael   GP = Green   Lab = Labour
Parl.	Election	Member (Party)		Member (Party)		Member (Party)		Member (Party)
1st	1979[3]		Mark Clinton (FG)		Patrick Lalor (FF)		Liam Kavanagh (Lab)	3 seats until 1994
	1981[4]						Séamus Pattison (Lab)
	1983[4]						Justin Keating (Lab)
2nd	1984[5]						Jim Fitzsimons (FF)
3rd	1989[6]		Patrick Cooney (FG)
4th	1994[7]		Alan Gillis (FG)		Liam Hyland (FF)				Nuala Ahern (GP)
5th	1999[8]		Avril Doyle (FG)
6th	2004	Constituency abolished. See East.

Note: The columns in this table are used only for presentational purposes, and no significance should be attached to the order of columns. For details of the order in which seats were won at each election, see the detailed results of that election.

Elections

1999 election

1999 European Parliament election: Leinster[8]

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3
	Fine Gael	Avril Doyle	19.8	67,881	69,495
	Fianna Fáil	Jim Fitzsimons	17.2	58,750	61,439	66,117
	Fianna Fáil	Liam Hyland	17.1	58,477	61,931	65,496
	Fine Gael	Alan Gillis	14.2	48,729	50,040	56,881
	Green	Nuala Ahern	13.8	47,184	52,618	66,808
	Labour	Seán Butler	11.1	38,112	40,849
	Sinn Féin	Arthur Morgan	5.9	20,015
	Natural Law	Desmond Garrett	0.9	3,191
Electorate: 706,200   Valid: 342,339   Spoilt: 14,725 (4.1%)   Quota: 68,468   Turnout: 357,064 (50.6%)

Alan Gillis lost his seat to his party running mate Avril Doyle.

1994 election

1994 European Parliament election: Leinster[9][10]

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7
	Fianna Fáil	Liam Hyland	17.7	46,448	46,737	47,255	48,238	49,236	51,543	54,161
	Fine Gael	Alan Gillis	16.3	42,826	43,156	43,346	43,793	47,112	48,309	50,896
	Fianna Fáil	Jim Fitzsimons	15.8	41,375	41,611	42,516	43,684	44,802	45,626	50,263
	Green	Nuala Ahern	11.8	30,997	32,302	33,849	35,712	37,946	39,297	45,821
	Fine Gael	Monica Barnes	11.4	29,958	30,235	30,448	30,949	33,692	35,070	39,518
	Labour	Michael Bell	8.8	22,987	23,186	23,815	24,442	25,366	34,926
	Labour	Séamus Pattison	6.7	17,580	17,869	18,140	18,478	18,953
	Progressive Democrats	John Dardis	4.8	12,591	12,919	13,052	13,472
	Independent	Jack Fitzsimons	2.6	6,752	7,262	7,802
	Sinn Féin	Lucilita Bhreatnach	2.5	6,523	6,627
	Independent	Peter Sweetman	1.2	3,228
	Natural Law	Tom Mullins	0.5	1,180
Electorate: 624,561   Valid: 262,445   Spoilt: 6,599 (2.5%)   Quota: 52,490   Turnout: 269,044 (43.1%)

Alan Gillis replaced his party colleague Patrick Cooney who had stepped down. The Green Party gained the additional seat.

1989 election

1989 European Parliament election: Leinster[11][12]

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
	Fianna Fáil	Patrick Lalor	20.0	75,627	75,715	75,856	76,198	76,370	76,914	78,753	81,555	85,090	88,868	90,473
	Fine Gael	Patrick Cooney	17.4	65,775	65,926	65,962	66,430	66,504	66,733	67,963	71,289	82,701	112,060
	Fianna Fáil	Jim Fitzsimons	16.9	63,797	63,906	63,994	64,344	64,528	65,214	66,474	69,639	72,739	74,004	75,249
	Labour	Michael Bell	13.2	49,766	49,870	49,954	50,298	50,537	51,104	55,754	61,606	65,668	68,015	75,239
	Fine Gael	Charles McDonald	9.5	35,792	35,863	35,944	36,063	36,168	36,367	37,910	39,962	46,931
	Progressive Democrats	John Dardis	8.4	31,623	31,730	31,789	32,159	32,194	32,393	33,703	37,490
	Green	Seán English	6.3	23,724	23,922	23,992	24,309	24,401	25,162	27,199
	Workers' Party	Michael Enright	2.5	9,451	9,731	9,797	9,982	10,093	10,703
	Workers' Party	Catherine Murphy	1.9	7,089	7,125	7,321	7,413	7,684	8,155
	Sinn Féin	Kevin Dunphy	1.2	4,534	4,620	5,036	5,329	7,393
	Independent	Kevin Boland	0.9	3,362	3,462	3,496
	Sinn Féin	Pearse McGeough	0.8	3,001	3,009	3,863	3,930
	Sinn Féin	Terry Moore	0.6	2,424	2,438
	Independent	Cornelius de Groot	0.4	1,626
Electorate: 571,694   Valid: 377,591   Spoilt: 14,106 (3.6%)   Quota: 94,398   Turnout: 391,697 (68.5%)

Mark Clinton stepped down and was replaced by his party colleague Patrick Cooney.

1984 election

1984 European Parliament election: Leinster[13][14]

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4
	Fine Gael	Mark Clinton	23.8	61,669	63,159	92,091
	Fianna Fáil	Jim Fitzsimons	22.1	57,321	60,028	60,994	63,935
	Fianna Fáil	Patrick Lalor	21.7	56,191	59,180	59,928	61,277
	Fine Gael	Deirdre Bolger	12.8	33,208	34,570
	Labour	Justin Keating	11.9	30,773	35,308	37,756	53,552
	Workers' Party	Liz McManus	3.5	8,943
	Sinn Féin	Martin Sharkey	1.8	4,548
	Sinn Féin	John Carroll	1.7	4,396
	Sinn Féin	James Dwyer	0.9	2,245
Electorate: 545,878   Valid: 259,294   Spoilt: 9,197 (3.4%)   Quota: 64,824   Turnout: 268,491 (49.2%)

Justin Keating lost his seat to Jim Fitzsimmons of Fianna Fáil.

1979 election

1979 European Parliament election: Leinster[15][16]

Party		Candidate	FPv%	Count
				1	2	3	4	5
	Fine Gael	Mark Clinton	25.7	78,762
	Fianna Fáil	Patrick Lalor	20.2	62,094	63,538	65,267	77,790
	Labour	Liam Kavanagh[4]	13.1	40,072	43,704	47,801	49,187	58,576
	Fianna Fáil	Tom Nolan	11.2	34,210	35,502	36,048	48,375	51,343
	Fianna Fáil	Paddy Power	10.1	31,023	32,119	32,668
	Fine Gael	Charles McDonald	8.1	24,875	25,637	37,841	38,794
	Fine Gael	Monica Barnes	7.0	21,384	22,461
	Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party	Donnchadha MacRaghnaill	2.7	8,414
	Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party	Sean Walsh	2.0	6,062
Electorate: 486,248   Valid: 306,896   Spoilt: 15,416 (4.8%)   Quota: 76,725   Turnout: 322,312 (66.3%)

See also

• European Parliament constituencies in the Republic of Ireland

References

1. "European Assembly Elections Act, 1977: Schedule (Constituencies)". Irish Statute Book database. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
2. "European Parliament Elections (Amendment) Act 2004: Schedule (Constituencies)". Irish Statute Book database. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
3. "1979 European Parliament election – Leinster constituency". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
4. Liam Kavanagh resigned on 7 July 1981 after becoming Minister for Labour and was substituted by Séamus Pattison (LAB / PES) on 9 July 1981. Séamus Pattison resigned on 15 December 1983 and was substituted by Justin Keating (LAB / PES) on 8 February 1984.
5. "1984 European Parliament election – Leinster constituency". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
6. "1989 European Parliament election – Leinster constituency". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
7. "1994 European Parliament election – Leinster constituency". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
8. "1999 European Parliament election – Leinster constituency". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
9. http://irelandelection.com/electiondetail.php?elecid=216&constitid=476&electype=7
10. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ireland/en/your-meps/1994-european-elections-results
11. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ireland/en/your-meps/1989-european-elections-results
12. http://irelandelection.com/electiondetail.php?elecid=215&constitid=476&electype=7
13. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ireland/en/your-meps/1984-european-elections-results
14. http://irelandelection.com/electiondetail.php?elecid=214&constitid=476&electype=7
15. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ireland/en/your-meps/1979-european-elections-results
16. http://irelandelection.com/electiondetail.php?elecid=213&constitid=476&electype=7

External links

• European Parliament elections 1999 – Leinster