Turnout: 59.70%
About this election
The Irish general election of 29 November 2024 returned the governing parties to power and confounded predictions of a Sinn Féin breakthrough. Fianna Fáil, led by Micheál Martin, emerged as the largest party with 21.86% of first preferences and 48 of the 174 seats in the enlarged Dáil. Fine Gael, under its new leader and Taoiseach Simon Harris, took 20.80% and 38 seats, while Sinn Féin recovered late in the campaign to finish second in seats with 39 on 19.01%. The three big parties were again separated by only a few points. Turnout was about 59.7%.
As in every Dáil election, TDs were elected by the single transferable vote (PR-STV) in multi-seat constituencies of three to five members. The 2024 election was the first held in 43 constituencies returning 174 seats — up from 160 — following a constituency revision that added seats to reflect Ireland's rapid population growth. Voters rank candidates in order of preference and votes transfer as candidates are elected or eliminated, so the national first-preference shares shown here do not map onto a single regional winner; this page presents the national result and the composition of the Dáil.
The election was called early by Simon Harris, who had taken over from Leo Varadkar in April 2024 and enjoyed a buoyant "Harris bounce". The campaign was dominated by the cost-of-living and housing crises, record inward migration and the management of large budget surpluses swollen by corporation-tax receipts. Sinn Féin, which had led the polls for much of the previous three years, had slipped after a difficult 2024 — including a poor showing in that June's local and European elections — and the smaller left and Green parties struggled to break through.
The two government parties together comfortably outpolled Sinn Féin, vindicating their strategy of continuity. The Social Democrats and Labour each won 11 seats, a good night for the centre-left, while the Greens — junior partners in the outgoing coalition — collapsed from 12 seats to a single seat, the classic fate of a small party in government. Aontú grew to 2 seats, Independent Ireland to 4, and a large group of independents and others again took a substantial share, around 17 seats.
With the result close to the previous Dáil's arithmetic, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael renewed their partnership, this time without the Greens, assembling a majority with the support of independents. In January 2025 Micheál Martin returned as Taoiseach under a renewed rotation arrangement with Simon Harris. The election was notable across Europe as a rare case of incumbent governing parties being re-elected in a year of anti-incumbent swings, and it left Sinn Féin once more in opposition despite three elections of sustained support.
Houses of the Oireachtas / Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage — oireachtas.ie.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.