Sean Defoe

speaker

707 appearances 8 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 23 Jun

Sean Defoe’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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The Pat Kenny Show · Count day! Dublin Central and Galway West By-Election with Sean Defoe · 23 May 2026 podcast

There is quite a buzz here.

There's a lot of talliers from the Sock Dems.

There's a lot of people tallying for Sinn Féin.

There's a lot of people tallying for Fine Gael.

I was actually quite surprised with the crowd here in the RDS when they opened the doors at 9am.

So there is quite a buzz here.

But I suppose the big story here, Sean, overnight has been turnout, or lack of it.

Dublin Central has been traditionally recorded lower turnouts than many other constituencies, and by-elections generally see participation fall even further.

By close of polls last night, turnout was estimated at around just 39%, significantly down on the 52% recorded in the 2024 general election.

Participation has varied across the constituency, with turnout reportedly as high as 52% in Drumcondra and parts of Cabra, but falling to just 25% in parts of the north inner city.

So the electorate here has also fallen by more than 5,000 since the last general election, following a recent electoral commission campaign to remove duplicate entries, as well as voters who had emigrated or died.

So that leaves an electorate of almost 58,000 people here.

If turnout remains around 40%, the ballot poll is expected to be in the region of 23,000 votes, meaning the winning candidate will likely need somewhere around 11,500 votes after transfers to take the seat here.

The contest, Sean, is widely seen, as we know now, as a two-horse race between Social Democrats Daniel Ennis and Sinn Féin candidate Janice Boylan.

Both parties are expressing confidence to me this morning, even though it's early days.

Both seem to be confident that they can take the seat.

They're telling me that they got their vote out yesterday, despite the low turnout.

But, as I say, turnout appears to be low, but it has held up in those areas such as Cabra, Glasnevin, Drumcondra, districts expected to be in favour of Janis Boylan and Daniel Ennis.

There will also be major attention, as you mentioned, on independent candidate Gerry de Moncouch.

He came close, of course, to winning his seat in the last general election.

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