Irish gangland figure fails in Dublin byelection bid for seat in parliament

The Irish gangland figure Gerry “the monk” Hutch has failed in his bid for a parliamentary seat in a Dublin byelection.

The 63-year-old came fourth in a contest won by Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats, a victory for progressive politics after a campaign dominated by concerns over the cost of living and immigration.

Hutch, who has been named in court as the leader of an organised crime group and was jailed for robbery convictions in his youth, ran as an independent and called for “illegal immigrants” to be interned in camps. He singled out people from Somalia.

In the Dublin Central constituency Hutch won 2,817 first preference votes – 11.3% of the total – and that rose to 4,466 after votes from eliminated candidates were transferred. It left Hutch trailing Ennis, who won 12,050 in the final count, Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan, with 7,787, and the Green party’s Janet Horner, with 5,452.

The election was on Friday and results were announced on Saturday. Ennis promised to bring “deep humanity” to the Dáil and said he would do his best to represent all those who call the Dublin Central constituency home.

Hutch’s defeat was a relief for establishment candidates who feared that his fame and notoriety, and a sour mood to the government, would deliver a shock result.

However, Hutch and another anti-immigration candidate, the independent councillor Malachy Steenson, increased their share of the first preference vote from Ireland’s 2024 general election, in which both competed.

During the election, Bertie Ahern, the former Fianna Fáil taoiseach, was secretly recorded telling a voter that he worried about Muslims and arrivals from Africa. “We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places.” The current taoiseach, Micheál Martin, distanced the party and the government from the remarks.

The byelection was to fill the vacancy left by Paschal Donohoe, a finance minister with the ruling Fine Gael party, who quit the Dáil for a World Bank job.

With coffers swelled by corporate tax revenues, the centrist Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael coalition has ramped up public spending, but rising prices and a housing shortage have fuelled protests and resentment.

The Social Democrat victory revived questions over Mary Lou McDonald’s leadership of Sinn Féin, the main opposition party, which also missed out on a seat in a Galway byelection. McDonald told reporters she felt “no pressure” and that the party would continue building. “I would humbly suggest to you that when a general election comes, when a general election lands, watch and see how we perform.”

Vote counting in Galway resumed on Sunday, with Noel Thomas of the group Independent Ireland holding a narrow leader over Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne.

Hutch has been a notorious figure for decades. A court named him as the leader of an organised crime group and he has admitted to committing crimes. “Some of them I got away with,” he told RTÉ in 2008.