November 1982 Irish general election

The second general election of 1982 took place just nine months after the election in February of the same year. There had never before been three general elections within eighteen months.

The general election was caused by the loss of support of the Independent TD Tony Gregory and the Workers' Party for the Fianna Fáil government. This was due to the government introducing substantial budget cuts, which the left-wing Teachta Dála (TDs) would not support. While economic issues dominated the campaign, the parties were weary of having to fight yet another general election.

Election to the 24th Dáil – 24 November 1982[3][4][5][6]
Party		Leader	Seats	±	% of seats	First pref. votes	% FPv	±%
	Fianna Fáil	Charles Haughey	75	–6	45.2	763,313	45.2	–2.1
	Fine Gael	Garret FitzGerald	70	+7	42.2	662,284	39.2	+1.9
	Labour	Dick Spring	16	+1	9.6	158,115	9.4	+0.3
	Workers' Party	Tomás Mac Giolla	2	–1	1.2	54,888	3.3	+1.0
	Democratic Socialist	Jim Kemmy	0	New	0	7,012	0.4	–
	Green		0	New	0	3,716	0.2	–
	Irish Republican Socialist	Jim Lane	0	0	0	398	0.0	-0.2
	Communist	Eugene McCartan	0	0	0	259	0.0	0
	Independent	N/A	3[lower-alpha 1]	–1	1.2	38,735	2.3	–0.5
Spoilt votes						12,665	—	—
Total			166[lower-alpha 1]	0	100	1,701,385	100	—
Electorate/Turnout						2,335,153	72.9%	—

Independents include Independent Fianna Fáil (7,997 votes, 1 seat).

Fine Gael and the Labour Party formed the 19th Government of Ireland, a majority coalition.

Fine Gael recorded its best election result until 2011, coming within five seats of Fianna Fáil; at other times (such as 1977) Fianna Fáil had been twice as big as Fine Gael. The Labour Party had a new leader with Dick Spring. A programme for government was quickly drawn up and Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael became Taoiseach for the second time. The poor showing for Fianna Fáil resulted in a leadership challenge to Charles Haughey by his opponents within the party. Haughey won the vote of confidence and remained as leader.

The following changes took place as a result of the election:

• 5 outgoing TDs retired
• 1 vacant seat at election time
• 159 outgoing TDs stood for re-election (also John O'Connell, the outgoing Ceann Comhairle who was automatically returned)
  • 138 of those were re-elected
  • 21 failed to be re-elected
• 27 successor TDs were elected
  • 18 were elected for the first time
  • 9 had previously been TDs
• There were 6 successor female TDs, increasing the total by 6 to 14.
• There were changes in 22 of the 41 constituencies contested

Where more than one change took place in a constituency the concept of successor is an approximation for presentation only.

• Government of the 24th Dáil

• November 1982 election: Party leaders' debate RTÉ archives

• Nealon, Ted; Brennan, Séamus; Menzies, Gina (eds.). Nealon's guide: 24th Dáil & Seanad: 2nd election '82. Platform Press. ISBN 0950598461.