European elections

Information

Direct elections to the European Parliament are held every 5 years. The first direct elections were held in 1979. The 2004 elections took place on Friday 11th June, 2004. European Parliament elections took place within a 4-day period in the month of June all over the European Union. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government appoints a returning officer for the "polling day" and the "polling period", which must be at least 12 hours between 8.00 a.m. and 10.30 p.m.

For electoral purposes, Ireland is divided into 4 constituencies: Dublin, which elects 4 MEPs, East, North-West and South which will each elect 3 MEPs. Responsibility for conducting the election in each of the 4 constituencies rests with a returning officer appointed by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. He or she must be a County Registrar or a City or County Sheriff. There are also local returning officers who are responsible for taking the poll from the many polling stations in each county and city.

The 2004 european elections were the first elections with an enlarged EU of 25 Member States. Previously, there were 626 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Following the June elections, the number of MEP's increased to 732 Members (including representatives from the new EU States). Ireland's MEP representation was reduced to 13 Members (up to June 2004 we elected 15 MEP's).

In 2003 the Irish Government established a Constituency Commission to report on the constituencies for election of members to the Dail and to the European Parliament. A report was issued in October, 2003 which made some wide-ranging recommendations. View (pdf)the full Report on European Parliament Constituencies 2003 here

For further information about European elections, nominations and voting arrangements, you may be interested in reading the following:

• Who can become a Member of the European Parliament?
• Nomination of candidates for membership of the European Parliament
• How do you vote at a European Parliament election?
• How are the votes counted?