{"id":484831,"date":"2026-05-14T19:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484831\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:48:11","slug":"janice-boylan-leads-dublin-central-byelection-race-with-gerry-hutch-in-third-poll-shows-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484831\/","title":{"rendered":"Janice Boylan leads Dublin Central byelection race with Gerry Hutch in third, poll shows \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>\u2019s Janice Boylan leads the byelection race in Dublin Central but Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats<\/a> is strongly positioned to benefit from transfers in later counts, according to an opinion poll in the constituency<\/a> for The Irish Times and TG4 by Ipsos B&A. <\/p>\n

Veteran criminal Gerry Hutch<\/a> is running in third place. Garda\u00ed in court have described Hutch as the figurehead of the Hutch crime gang involved in the Kinahan-Hutch feud. The 62-year-old father of five, who has for years lived mostly in Lanzarote, is under investigation in Spain where he is suspected of being the leader of an international money laundering group.<\/p>\n

Ray McAdam of Fine Gael<\/a> is in fourth position, the poll finds. <\/p>\n

But there is bad news for Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a>, whose candidate John Stephens is failing to make an impression. The poll was carried out in the constituency before the controversy over former taoiseach Bertie Ahern\u2019s remarks<\/a> about immigrants this week.<\/p>\n

The findings of the poll on first preference votes are as follows: Janice Boylan (Sinn F\u00e9in) 21 per cent; Daniel Ennis (Social Democrats) 18 per cent; Gerry Hutch (Independent) 14 per cent; Ray McAdam (Fine Gael) 13 per cent; Janet Horner (Greens) 8 per cent; Malachy Steenson (Independent) 7 per cent; Ruth O\u2019Dea (Labour) 6 per cent; John Stephens (Fianna F\u00e1il) 4 per cent; Eoghan \u00d3 Ceannabh\u00e1in (People Before Profit) 3 per cent. <\/p>\n

\"MaryMary Lou McDonald TD and SF Candidate for Dublin Central, Cllr Janice Boylan, as she submits her nomination papers for the by-election.
\nPhoto Sam Boal\/Collins Photos <\/p>\n

The remaining candidates attracted 1 per cent support or less.<\/p>\n

While Boylan leads the pack for Sinn F\u00e9in in her party leader Mary Lou McDonald\u2019s constituency, the Social Democrats candidate Ennis is well placed to benefit from transfers. When respondents were asked who they would give their second preference to, after those unlikely to vote and those who said they would not nominate a second preference were excluded, Ennis came top with 15 per cent, followed by the Greens\u2019 Horner on 14 per cent and Boylan on 10 per cent. <\/p>\n

Independent candidate Steenson was also on 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

Ennis is expected to be in a position to pick up left-wing transfers from the Greens, Labour and People Before Profit. He will also hope that Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il transfers will go to him, rather than Sinn F\u00e9in. If so, it will leave Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Boylan short of transfers in the later counts.<\/p>\n

The cost of living is the most important issue for the constituency, nominated by a third (33 per cent) of respondents. The next most important issue is house prices (24 per cent) while the cost of renting was nominated as the most important issue by 11 per cent. Immigration was mentioned by 12 per cent. <\/p>\n

The poll shows that there is a strong appetite for change in the Dublin Central constituency. Over half of all respondents (53 per cent) say they feel it is time for \u201cradical change\u201d in the way the country is run, while a further 39 per cent are in favour of \u201cmoderate change\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is huge dissatisfaction with the Government, with almost three-quarters of voters (72 per cent) saying they are dissatisfied with the handling of the fuel crisis. <\/p>\n

The survey was conducted among a sample of 659 adults aged 18 upwards in the Dublin Central constituency on behalf of TG4 and The Irish Times by Ipsos B&A. Face-to-face interviews took place between Thursday, May 7th and Tuesday May 12th. The margin of error is approximately plus or minus four percentage points. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Janice Boylan leads the byelection race in Dublin Central but Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,207345,2190,52,18,13,14,4771,553,92241,18577,6,8752,19,56,17,9171,11,12,15,16,16594,5,27171,4097,47,18578,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-484831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-byelection","11":"tag-cost-of-living","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-fianna-fail","17":"tag-fine-gael","18":"tag-gerry-hutch","19":"tag-green-party","20":"tag-headlines","21":"tag-housing-crisis","22":"tag-ie","23":"tag-immigration","24":"tag-ireland","25":"tag-labour-party","26":"tag-latest-news","27":"tag-latestnews","28":"tag-main-news","29":"tag-mainnews","30":"tag-mary-lou-mcdonald","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps","33":"tag-renting","34":"tag-sinn-fein","35":"tag-social-democrats","36":"tag-top-stories","37":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116574664551503428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484831","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=484831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}