A by-election was held for a vacancy in the Cultural and Educational Panel of Seanad Éireann on 20 October 2014. The vacancy was caused by the election of Fine Gael's Deirdre Clune to the European Parliament. It was won by Independent candidate

Gerard Craughwell Gerard Patrick Craughwell (born 22 November 1953) is an Irish Independent politician who has served as a Senator for the Labour Panel since April 2016, and previously from 2014 to 2016 for the Cultural and Educational Panel. Early and personal ...

Election system

In vacancies in the vocational panels, the electorate in by-elections consists of

Oireachtas The Oireachtas (, ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of: *The President of Ireland *The bicameralism, two houses of the Oireachtas ...

members only. To be nominated, a candidate required the signature of nine TDs or Senators. The electorate to fill the casual vacancy was the 225 members of the

. All votes were cast by postal ballot, and were counted using the single transferable vote. Under this system, voters can rank candidates in order of their preference, 1 as their first preference, 2 for second preference, and so on.

Election

Fine Gael Senator Deirdre Clune was elected to the European Parliament for the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

constituency at the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union, from 22 to 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candid ...

on 23 May. This created a vacancy in the Cultural and Educational Panel.

put himself forward in August 2014 as an independent candidate, initially a symbolic gesture to protest against the usual practice of the government using its parliamentary majority to secure the election of its chosen candidate. Craughwell secured nomination from members of the

technical group In politics, a technical group or mixed group is a heterogenous parliamentary group composed of elected officials from political parties of differing ideologies (or independent of any party) who are not numerous enough to form groups on their own. ...

and Fianna Fáil. On 12 September 2014, the

Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media ( ga, An tAire Turasóireachta, Cultúir, Ealaíon, Gaeltachta, Spóirt agus Meán) is a senior minister in the Government of Ireland and leads the Department of Tourism, Cultu ...

Heather Humphreys Heather Humphreys (born 14 May 1963) is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has served as Minister for Rural and Community Development and Minister for Social Protection since June 2020. She also briefly served as Minister for Justice in November ...

wrote to John McNulty, a businessman who had run unsuccessfully for Donegal County Council in the 2014 local elections, offering him a place on the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA); he accepted on 15 September, and before nominations closed on 18 September Fine Gael nominated him for the by-election to fill the Seanad vacancy. Opposition politicians protested that McNulty's IMMA appointment was abusive and had been made solely to bolster his eligibility for the Cultural and Educational Panel; Humphreys took responsibility for the appointment and refused to state whether others had pressed her to make it. McNulty resigned from the IMMA board on 25 September, stating its rules prohibited board members from running for election. On 30 September, McNulty withdrew his name from consideration in the by-election, stating that "to contest the election would be an ongoing distraction from the critical work of Government"; however, as the period to formally withdraw had elapsed, his name remained on the ballot paper and he requested that electors not vote for him. Many electors voted for McNulty regardless, with Craughwell winning the election held on 10 October. On 23 February 2016, in a televised debate before the 2016 general election, Enda Kenny appeared to concede for the first time that it was his decision to nominate McNulty to IMMA, later backtracking somewhat.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish Seanad By-Election, 2014 By-election 2014 Ireland Seanad October 2014 events in Europe Seanad, 2014