GE2024: Women ready to tame the wild male Meath West

Meath West has never returned a female TD and with two of the major parties opting to run women as their sole candidate, this could be about to change with both Aisling Dempsey (FF) and Linda Nelson Murray (FG) in strong contention for a seat.

However, overall just three of the 14 candidates or 32 per cent of those running are women with Labour's Sandy Gallagher being the third. This is still well up on the previous two general elections though when just one female appeared on the ballot paper- Sarah Reilly (FG) in 2020 and Tracy McElhinney for Labour in 2016.

Meath East by contrast sees 11 women in the field of 18- meaning a remarkable 61 per cent of candidates running are female, surely up there as one of the highest in the country.

Meath has only ever had three female TD's. Fianna Fáil's Mary Wallace was the first in 1989 in the old five-seater Meath constituency, holding her seat in subsequent general elections and taking one of the three seats in the new Meath East constituency in 2007 before announcing her retirement in 2011.

Fine Gael's Regina Doherty became the second female TD when she was elected in Meath East that year, holding her seat in 2016 before losing out in 2020.

Outgoing Fine Gael TD, Helen McEntee was first elected in the by-election of 2013 to fill the seat of her late father Shane and retained that seat in 2016 and 2020. This time, she is joined on the ballot paper by Sharon Tolan, a first time general election candidate. Tolan, who is the current Cathaoirleach of Meath County Council has been a councillor for ten years in the Laytown/Bettystown area and with a fourth seat now up for grabs, Fine Gael is working hard to try to win it for the party.

Independent councillor Gillian Toole topped the poll in the Ratoath area in convincing style in June's local elections with over 3,000 votes and is being tipped by many to take the fourth seat. A pharmacist by profession, she is being backed by Senator Sharon Keogan, and several independent Meath county councillors who have been lending their support to her campaign.

Aontú is also running a female candidate, Emer Tóibín who ran in 2020 polling just shy of four per cent and will be hoping the party's gains in the opinion polls will help put her in contention for the extra seat.

Sinn Féin topped the poll with Darren O'Rourke in 2020 and has opted to run a second candidate this time- councillor Maria White, a school principal, who was elected to the Laytown/Bettystown area for the first time in June.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil has selected Cllr Caroline O'Reilly, as a running mate for Thomas Byrne.

The remaining female candidates include Labour's Eilish Balfe, Clara McMcCormack (PBP), Carolyn Fahy (Party for Animal Welfare) and Jean Murray (National Party) and Barbara Reid (Liberty Republic),