{"id":412594,"date":"2026-03-31T03:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/412594\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:09","slug":"deputy-lord-mayor-stephens-selected-by-fianna-fail-for-dublin-central-byelection-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/412594\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputy Lord Mayor Stephens selected by Fianna F\u00e1il for Dublin Central byelection \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> has selected the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, John Stephens, as its candidate in the Dublin<\/a> Central byelection this May. <\/p>\n

The party has insisted it can win the election despite not holding a seat in the four-seat constituency for the past 15 years. <\/p>\n

Stephens, a councillor for the Cabra-Glasnevin<\/a> local electoral area, was the only person to put his name forward for the convention, which was held in the Ashling Hotel on Monday evening. <\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il has not had a TD representing the constituency since former party leader and taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a> resigned in 2011. <\/p>\n

Stephens, who is in his 50s, is a new councillor having been elected for the first time in the 2024 local elections. He was born in the constituency and has lived there all his life. He is an employee of the Mater hospital<\/a> and has two grown-up children. <\/p>\n

He was nominated by Fianna F\u00e1il councillors on Dublin City Council<\/a> for the role of Deputy Lord Mayor last summer. The current Lord Mayor, Ray McAdam, is also a candidate<\/a> in the election, standing for Fine Gael<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Speaking after the convention on Monday night, Stephens said: \u201cIt is an honour to be selected as the Fianna F\u00e1il candidate for Dublin Central. I have lived, worked and played an active role in this community throughout my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s director of elections, Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a>, said he looked forward to working with Stephens in Dublin Central. <\/p>\n

\u201cJohn brings deep local knowledge of the constituency … and knows first-hand the issues that matter to people. He also has a long record of community activism and hands-on experience on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach and party leader Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said: \u201cJohn has been a community activist in the area for many years and as Deputy Lord Mayor knows Dublin Central exceptionally well. John knows what works for this area and its people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The byelection was caused by the resignation of Fine Gael TD and minister for finance Paschal Donohoe<\/a> to take up a senior position with the World Bank in New York. <\/p>\n

In the 2009 byelection in Dublin Central following the death of Tony Gregory, Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s candidate was Maurice Ahern, a brother of Bertie Ahern. He won 13 per cent of the vote, half the total of first preferences of Maureen O\u2019Sullivan, who was seen as the Gregory candidate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il has selected the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, John Stephens, as its candidate in the Dublin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[15526,9,10,13458,52,15861,18573,18,13,14,4771,553,15858,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,83539,5,46,7,8],"class_list":["post-412594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bertie-ahern","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-darragh-obrien","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-11","tag-dublin-7","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-glasnevin","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mater-hospital","tag-news","tag-paschal-donohoe","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116321739641739651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}