RTÉ Coverage of General Elections - 2002

General Election 2002

In the lead-up to the 2002 General Election, Labour, sensing the unpopularity of Fine Gael, did not enter into a pre-election pact. The election was a disaster for Fine Gael, who lost 23 seats. The collapse of the vote on this scale saw a large number of high-profile candidates lose their seats. These included Alan Dukes, Nora Owen, Austin Currie, Alan Shatter and Jim Mitchell, who was the deputy leader of Fine Gael.  Sinn Féin increased its number of seats to five, the Green Party went from two seats to six, while the number of independent deputies increased from six to thirteen. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats returned to government. Michael Noonan, leader of Fine Gael, resigned as soon as the election results became clear.

The introduction of electronic voting in three constituencies caused much debate.

Nearly 40 years after television first covered a general election, the sheer scale on which Irish politics was now being reported is obvious from this report for "The Week in Politics" on the first week of the election campaign.

Radio programme "Tonight With Vincent Browne" relayed live the leaders' debate between Michael Noonan and Bertie Ahern. The programme's panel of journalists, Declan Lynch, Katie Hannon and Tom McGurk, discussed the debate and all felt that Noonan was a clear winner. 23 years after the first televised debate, it had become questionable as to how much, if any, influence the leaders' debate had on persuading people how to vote.

With electronic voting to be used for the first time in three constituencies, "The Late Late Show" explains how the process works. Audience members debate the pros and cons of electronic voting as they see them. Noel Whelan, author of "The Tallyman's Campaign Handbook", expresses his concern that the drama would be taken out of the count process and thereby make politics seem less exciting to the public.

Presenter John Bowman and the panel on "Election 2002" discuss the implications of electronic voting as the first result from an electronic count is about to be announced. At 2.05am, the result in Dublin West is declared.

Brian Lenihan of Fianna Fáil tops the poll, and in doing so becomes the first candidate elected by electronic voting in Ireland. Joan Burton of Labour wins back the seat she lost in 1997. Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party takes the third seat.

Shortly afterwards, Brian Lenihan offers a candidate's opinion of the electronic count.

Results take longer to emerge from the new electronic counting system than has been originally anticipated. This adds to the tension in the constituencies of Dublin North and Meath. In Dublin North, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent is the first elected, but there is some confusion when the presiding officer is not heard reading out the winner of the fourth seat, which goes to G.V. Wright of Fianna Fáil. This means that Nora Owen, a former deputy leader of Fine Gael, has lost her seat.

In Meath, John Bruton retains his seat for Fine Gael and is joined by newcomer Damien English. For Fianna Fáil, Noel Dempsey, Mary Wallace and Johnny Brady are returned. Johnny Brady has to wait until last to hear he has been elected, much to the relief of his young son.

Candidates give their reaction to the electronic counts to "Morning Ireland". Neither the winners nor the losers are happy with the method of presentation of the results. Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, remarks that, "If the last two hours is anything to go by, bring back the tally people... We weren't subjected to the type of shambles that we have here". Nora Owen of Fine Gael does not believe that, "...it was handled tonight in a way that had any dignity or humanity in it".

"Beyond our worst fears, it has been a seriously bad election result for our party," remarks Michael Noonan to Charlie Bird on RTÉ News.

With Fine Gael winning only 31 seats, Noonan was left with little choice but to resign as leader of the party.