Irish general election, 1981 Totally Explained

Everything about Irish General Election 1981 totally explained

The Irish general election of 1981 was held on 11 June 1981, three weeks after the dissolution of the Dáil on May 21. The newly elected 166 members of the 22nd Dáil assembled at Leinster House on 30 June when a new Taoiseach and government were appointed.
The general election took place in 41 parliamentary constituencies throughout the Republic of Ireland for 166 seats in the lower house of parliament, Dáil Éireann. The number of seats in the Dáil was increased from 148 to 166.

Campaign

The general election of 1981 was the first one of five during the 1980s. The election also saw three new leaders of the three main parties fight their first general election. Charles Haughey had become Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil at the end of 1979, Garret FitzGerald was the new leader of Fine Gael and Frank Cluskey was in charge of the Labour Party.
Charles Haughey and Fianna Fáil seemed extremely popular with the electorate. He had wanted to call the general election for early in the year, however a series of events led to the postponement of the election until the summer. By that stage much of the earlier optimism in the party had filtered out. The party still offered a very attractive manifesto, promising the electorate more spending programmes. Fine Gael also put forward a series of tax-cutting plans. Both the main parties policies seemed completely unrealistic, particularly since the national debt of the country was spiralling out of control.

Result

Totals Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government formed.

22nd Irish General Election – 11 June 1981
Party		Leader	# of Seats	Gains/ Losses	% of Dáil	% of Votes
	Fianna Fáil	Charles Haughey	77	-7	46.3	45.3
	Fine Gael	Garret FitzGerald	65	+22	39.2	36.5
	Labour Party	Frank Cluskey	15	-2	9.0	9.9
	Anti H-Block	none	2	+2	1.2	3.1
	Sinn Féin the Workers Party	Tomás Mac Giolla	1	+1	0.6	1.7
	Others		5	+2	3.1	3.5
	Ceann Comhairle (Speaker)		1	-	0.6	-
166	+18	100.0	100.0

When the votes were counted the result was inconclusive. Fianna Fáil lost seats as a result of sympathy to the Anti H-Block candidates and the attractive tax proposals of Fine Gael. It was the worst performance for Fianna Fáil in twenty years. Meanwhile, Labour Party leader Frank Cluskey suffered the loss of his seat, necessitating a leadership change with Michael O'Leary succeeding Cluskey. A Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government came to power with Garret FitzGerald becoming the seventh Taoiseach.

First time TDs

A total of 50 TDs were elected for the first time:

Retiring TDs

Jack Lynch

John Mannion, Jnr

Outgoing TDs

Kit Ahern (lost seat)

Luke Belton (lost seat)

Barry Cogan (lost seat)

Jimmy Leonard (lost seat)Further Information

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