Counting is under way in Ireland for three landmark elections, with polls suggesting a Sinn Fein slump

A man looks at the ballot papers before casting his vote in the local and European elections at the Deaf Village in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Irish people are electing a swathe of new councillors as well as picking candidates to send to the European Parliament and, for the first time, some voters will be directly electing a mayor to represent them locally.

The separate elections come at a febrile time in Irish politics dominated by discussion on a housing crisis, the cost of living and migration.

The coalition partnership of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party has been battling criticism domestically and on the continent over other issues including climate action, agriculture policy and defence co-operation in the EU.

The eagerly awaited polls will provide political parties with concrete evidence of voter sentiment, having had to wait more than four years since the last nationwide elections.

In the intervening years since the last general election, politicians have had to rely on newspaper opinion polls to gauge the mood of the nation.

The main takeaway of the 2020 campaign was a massive upswing in support for Sinn Fein, which took away almost a quarter of the popular vote.

To leader Mary Lou McDonald’s regret, this was unrealised potential as the party was still left in opposition after failing to run a sufficient number of candidates in the parliamentary constituencies.

Since then, estimated support for Sinn Fein hovered above 30% for a long time – even temporarily reaching highs of around 35%.

However, opinion polls over the last eight months suggest that support for the party is on a dramatic slide – as independents eat up more of the expected vote share.

Many of the ballot papers across the elections contain a large number of independents with a variety of political leanings, several of whom have been described as anti-immigrant.

For a protracted period of time, Ireland has continued to fail to provide accommodation for all asylum seekers. There have been several anti-migrant protests across the State and buildings earmarked to accommodate refugees have been damaged in suspected arson attacks.

The results of the three campaigns being decided on Friday may be instructive for the overall state of the parties – and could potentially direct Mr Harris’ decision on when to call the next general election, which must be held by March next year.

On Friday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said “today is the big day” and said it was “very important” for people to use their vote.

Ireland uses a system of proportional representation which allows voters to rank every candidate in each race by order of preference.

Candidates must reach a certain quota of votes in order to be deemed elected.

In the likely event that not enough candidates are above this threshold following the first count, hopefuls with the least amount of votes are eliminated and their votes are redistributed based on the further preferences on the ballot papers. The same occurs when a candidate is elected with a “surplus” of votes.

The entire process can take days to complete.