Ireland is a parliamentary republic in which voters elect the parliament and the president, and parliament chooses the government. The head of government is the Taoiseach, currently Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil, appointed on 23 January 2025 to lead a coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and independents, with Fine Gael leader Simon Harris as Tánaiste (deputy). The head of state is President Catherine Connolly, elected at the vote of 24 October 2025 and inaugurated on 11 November 2025. The legislature, the Oireachtas, consists of the president and two houses meeting in Leinster House, Dublin: the 174-member Dáil Éireann, elected by proportional representation with the single transferable vote (PR-STV), and the 60-member Seanad Éireann. The rules for all of it are set by the Constitution of Ireland, Bunreacht na hÉireann, approved by plebiscite on 1 July 1937 and in force since 29 December 1937.
Because the Taoiseach must command a majority in the Dáil, the shape of every Irish government is decided at the ballot box and in the bargaining that follows. That makes the electoral system, the recent results and the parties the clearest way into how Ireland is run.
PR-STV in 43 Dáil Constituencies
The 174 members of the Dáil, known as Teachtaí Dála or TDs, are elected in 43 constituencies that return three, four or five members each. The constitution requires one TD for every 20,000 to 30,000 people, and the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2023 raised the total from 160 to 174, the largest Dáil in the state's history, and the number of constituencies from 39 to 43. Irish and British citizens aged 18 or over who are registered in Ireland can vote. The constitution allows a Dáil to sit for up to seven years, but the Electoral Act 1992 caps it at five, and an election must follow within 30 days of a dissolution.
On the ballot paper, voters number the candidates in order of preference: 1, 2, 3 and as far down as they wish. Counting works like this:
- A quota is calculated using the Droop formula: the valid votes divided by one more than the number of seats, plus one. In a four-seat constituency, that means just over a fifth of the vote guarantees election.
- Any candidate who reaches the quota on first preferences is elected, and their surplus votes are transferred according to the next preferences marked on their ballots.
- If no one reaches the quota, the lowest-placed candidate is eliminated and their votes move to the next preference. The count continues until every seat is filled.
The result is broadly proportional, although with only three to five seats per constituency a small party needs substantial local support to win one. Because transfers matter, candidates compete with running mates from their own party as well as with rivals, and independents with strong local followings regularly win seats: 16 of them did so in 2024. Since 2023 an independent Electoral Commission has overseen elections and constituency boundaries.
The same voting method elects the president, where it works as a single-winner runoff, and voters decide every change to the constitution in a referendum. The Seanad is chosen differently: 43 senators are elected from five vocational panels by TDs, outgoing senators and county and city councillors, six are elected by graduates of Dublin University and the National University of Ireland, and the Taoiseach nominates 11. The most recent Seanad election closed on 30 January 2025.
Dáil Elections of 2016, 2020 and 2024
26 February 2016
Enda Kenny's Fine Gael lost 26 seats but stayed the largest party with 50 of 158, on 25.5 percent of the first-preference vote. Fianna Fáil recovered from its 2011 collapse to 44 seats, Sinn Féin rose to 23, and Labour, Fine Gael's coalition partner, fell from 37 seats to 7. Fine Gael returned as a minority government, supported by independents and kept in office by a confidence-and-supply agreement with Fianna Fáil.
8 February 2020
The first general election held on a weekend since 1918 produced a three-way split. Sinn Féin won the most first preferences, 24.5 percent, and 37 seats, its best result since 1923. Fianna Fáil took 38 seats on 22.2 percent and Fine Gael 35 on 20.9 percent. It was the first time in almost a century that neither of the two traditional parties topped the poll. Both had ruled out governing with Sinn Féin, and after four months of talks, slowed by the arrival of COVID-19, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party formed a coalition with a rotating Taoiseach: Micheál Martin from 27 June 2020, Leo Varadkar from 17 December 2022, and Simon Harris from 9 April 2024 after he succeeded Varadkar as Fine Gael leader.
29 November 2024
Harris asked President Michael D. Higgins to dissolve the 33rd Dáil on 8 November 2024, and the election followed three weeks later. Housing, the cost of living, immigration and the economy dominated the campaign. Turnout fell to 59.7 percent, the lowest since 1923.
Fianna Fáil gained ground to 48 seats on 21.9 percent of first preferences, while Fine Gael won 38 on 20.8 percent. Together they had 86 seats, two short of a majority of 88. Sinn Féin, with 19.0 percent, took 39 seats and stayed the second-largest party. The Social Democrats and Labour each gained five seats to reach 11, and the Green Party, the third partner in the outgoing government, lost all but one seat, that of its leader Roderic O'Gorman.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Ireland's Smaller Parties
Irish party politics grew out of the split over the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. Fine Gael descends from Cumann na nGaedheal, the pro-treaty party that governed the Irish Free State in its first decade. Fianna Fáil was founded in 1926 by Éamon de Valera from the anti-treaty side, entered government after the 1932 election and wrote the 1937 constitution. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Fine Gael's forerunner Cumann na nGaedheal has led every government since independence in 1922. Until 1989 Fianna Fáil often governed alone; since then, coalitions have been the norm.
Sinn Féin, led by Mary Lou McDonald, is the main opposition party, an Irish republican party organised on both sides of the border with Northern Ireland. Labour, led by Ivana Bacik, was traditionally the third party but has been overtaken by Sinn Féin since 2016. The Social Democrats, launched in 2015 and led by Holly Cairns, promote a Nordic-style social democracy; People Before Profit–Solidarity is a left-wing alliance; Independent Ireland, founded in 2023 and led by Michael Collins, is on the right; and Aontú, led by Peadar Tóibín, combines social conservatism with left-leaning economics. Independents remain an unusually large bloc, with 16 seats in 2024 on 13.2 percent of the vote.
Parties also line up on referendums, which voters do not always follow. On 8 March 2024 the government parties and most of the opposition backed two amendments, one widening the constitutional definition of the family and one replacing the clause on women's "life within the home". Voters rejected them by 67.69 percent and 73.93 percent, among the largest No votes in the history of Irish referendums.
From the Count to Cabinet: Forming the 35th Government
Under the constitution, the Dáil nominates the Taoiseach by a simple majority of those voting, and the president must then appoint the person nominated. The Taoiseach picks the other ministers, who are appointed with the Dáil's consent, and can advise the president to dismiss them. If a Taoiseach loses the Dáil's support, they must resign or seek a dissolution, which the president may refuse; no president has ever done so.
After the 2024 election the arithmetic pointed to a renewed partnership of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, short of two seats. They found them among independents. A group of independent TDs asked the two parties to back Verona Murphy of the Regional Independent Group for Ceann Comhairle, the chair of the Dáil, as a condition of their support; she was elected on 18 December 2024, the first woman in the post. Because the outgoing chair is automatically re-elected, Seán Ó Fearghaíl of Fianna Fáil had already been returned to the Dáil without a contest. When the new Dáil first met that day, Sinn Féin's McDonald was proposed as Taoiseach but failed to win a majority.
On 15 January 2025 Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and nine independents, including the Regional Independent Group led by former minister Michael Lowry, agreed a programme for government. A Dáil sitting on 22 January was suspended amid a dispute over whether government-supporting independents could hold opposition speaking rights, which Martin said was the first time in over 100 years that the Dáil had failed to elect a government, and he was elected the next day. The 35th government gives independents posts as ministers of state rather than seats at cabinet, and its deal includes a fixed rotation: Martin serves as Taoiseach until November 2027, when the Fine Gael leader is due to take over and Martin becomes Tánaiste.
The presidency sits above this bargaining. The president serves seven years, up to two terms, and acts almost always on government advice, but can refer bills to the Supreme Court and decide whether to grant a dissolution. When Michael D. Higgins reached his two-term limit, the 2025 contest came down to independent Catherine Connolly and Fine Gael's Heather Humphreys after Fianna Fáil's Jim Gavin withdrew on 5 October, too late to leave the ballot. On a turnout of 45.8 percent, Connolly won 63.4 percent, the highest first-preference share in a contested presidential election, and 914,143 first preferences, the most ever for one candidate in an Irish election. A record 12.9 percent of ballots were spoiled. She is Ireland's tenth president and its third woman in the office, after Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, and lives at Áras an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park, a short distance from the parliament and government buildings of Dublin.