Donnelly suffers high profile loss as sole Fianna Fáil candidate for Wicklow
Signs The There File Somewhat About Sam Were Mr Months Chances Before That Was Nervous Boal/collins Donnelly His Picture: Election, In The
In what is possibly the most high profile loss of this general election, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly lost his seat in the early hours of Monday morning.
After two days and 13 counts, the Fianna Fáil minister lost out to Taoiseach Simon Harris's running mate Edward Timmins.
The pair had been battling it out for the final seat but, having gotten just 6% of first preferences and with transfers strongly favouring Mr Timmins, Mr Donnelly just could not close the gap.
In the hours before he lost the Wicklow seat, Mr Donnelly said that his chances of re-election were hampered by a strong "government vote" for Mr Harris and the loss of a seat in the constituency changes.
In the months before the election, there were signs that Mr Donnelly was somewhat nervous about his chances. The decision to run him as the sole Fianna Fáil candidate in the constituency appeared to indicate that the party shared his concern.
Scroll for results in your area
This weekend was not the first time Mr Donnelly faced a long and anxious wait to find out his fate. In 2020, he was not elected until the 15th count — failing to meet the quota.
It was a tough election but, on that occasion, he scraped through. When the Government was eventually formed over four months later, Mr Donnelly took on the role of minister of health.
The position has long been considered to be something of a poison chalice as, due to decades of mismanagement of the HSE, it means anyone who takes the position inherits a wealth of complex problems.
However, it should be noted that the last three taoisigh — Simon Harris, Leo Varadkar, and Micheál Martin — all held the position prior to leading their respective parties and the country.
When you add the fact that a large part of Mr Donnelly's four years in health was spent trying to contend with a global pandemic and its ripple effect across the entire health sector, it is difficult to come out unscathed.
Mr Donnelly was also dogged by the enormous money pit that the new children's hospital has become, along with the number of children suffering while waiting for years to undergo spinal surgery.
While the hospital was signed off by the outgoing taoiseach, the cost of the project continued to spiral, the completion date was pushed back multiple times, and relations between the Government and BAM deteriorated under Mr Donnelly's watch.
Mr Donnelly said BAM had committed to a June 2025 completion deadline, but this has been met with great scepticism by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) and members of the opposition.
The resignation of the interim chief executive of Children's Health Ireland days before the country went to the polls cast further doubt on the minister's promises.
In October, Mr Donnelly told Cabinet that the number of children waiting more than four months for surgery is expected to fall from 129 to 87 by the end of this year. It was too little, too late for the parents and the electorate.
No doubt, over the coming weeks Mr Donnelly will be trying to figure out where it all started to go wrong. Going by election results, his decline began when he joined Fianna Fáil.
In 2011, a relatively unknown 35-year-old Stephen Donnelly was elected as a Wicklow TD taking 9% of first-preference votes.
At this time he worked closely with now-Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore, whom he had encouraged to enter politics. The two shared a busy office in Greystones and were well received by their constituents.
Ahead of the 2016 election, the Wicklow duo were the founding members of the Social Democrats —with Mr Donnelly serving as co-leader alongside Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall.
It was at this time that Mr Donnelly hit his popular peak.
Running as a Social Democrats TD on the promise of ensuring transparent governance and providing a strong economy that can underpin our society and communities, Mr Donnelly took 20% of the first-preference vote in Wicklow and was elected on the first count.
Just seven months later, Mr Donnelly made the shock announcement that he was leaving the party he had helped to establish — but had not decided whether he would continue as an independent TD or join a party.
"Ultimately, I couldn't ask people to believe in something I no longer believed in myself. Having tried, and failed, to get it working, the only honest option left was to step down," he said of the Social Democrats.
The following year, he made his choice and announced he was joining Fianna Fáil — a party he had been vocally critical of in the past.
This did not sit well with some of those who had elected him as a Social Democrats TD, which had been positioned as an alternative to the centrist parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
One of the reasons Mr Donnelly gave for leaving the Social Democrats was that he had "hoped to create something fresh, outward-looking, and brave".
People then watched him join a party that has been in and out of power since the founding of the State, a party they did not view as fresh and brave. As a result, Mr Donnelly saw his first preferences share plummet from 20% to 7%.
In four elections, Mr Donnelly has campaigned as an Independent, a Social Democrat, and a Fianna Fáiler. His inconsistency in his position may make voters wary of where he will stand in five years' time.
Perhaps now, it is the electorate that feels he is asking people to believe in something that he is no longer sure of himself.