Social Democrats
Irish political party
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| 2025 | Social Democrats continued to hold 1 seat in the Seanad elections, demonstrating consistent political representation. |
| 2025 | Patricia Stephenson became the party's first Senator in the Seanad election, while simultaneously the party lost a TD due to Eoin Hayes' indefinite suspension. |
| February 2 2025 | The party announced their current front bench team, defining their leadership and spokesperson roles across different policy areas. |
| 2024 | Social Democrats improved their performance in local elections, securing 63,273 first preference votes, increasing to 3.4% of total votes and ranking 5th among political parties. The party also won 16 seats, marking a significant growth in their local political representation. |
| 2024 | Social Democrats increased their electoral performance, achieving 4.8% of first preference votes and winning 5 seats in the Dáil Éireann election, with Holly Cairns as a leader, and continued to remain in Opposition. |
| 2024 | As part of their 2024 manifesto, the party introduced a plan for a €10 million fund to bring Palestinian children to Ireland for medical treatment. |
| 2024 | Social Democrats released their general election manifesto, outlining five key policy aims including affordable housing, Sláintecare implementation, climate targets, disability ministerial representation, and public childcare development. |
| 2024 | Social Democrats released their manifesto with key disability policy proposals, including creating a Senior Minister for Disability position and introducing a weekly Cost of Disability payment. |
| 2024 | Social Democrats released their general election manifesto, outlining five key policy aims that would serve as 'red-lines' for potential government participation, as articulated by party leader Holly Cairns. |
| 2024 | Dublin Bay South TD Eoin Hayes was suspended from the party after confirming he provided incorrect details about the sale of his shares in Palantir, a software firm that supplies technology to the Israeli Defence Forces. |
| November 2024 | In the general election, the Social Democrats nearly doubled their number of TDs from 6 to 11, tying with Labour as the fourth-largest party in Ireland. |
| June 2024 | The Social Democrats ran 78 candidates in the local elections, with 35 elected, including 10 on Dublin City Council, becoming the second largest party. |
| June 2024 | The party ran three candidates in the European elections, increasing their first preference vote share to 2.95%, though no candidates were elected. |
| January 2024 | Social Democrats put forward a motion to back South Africa's case against Israel in the International Court of Justice. The government countered with an alternative motion, which passed instead. |
| 2023 | Galway City Councillor Owen Hanley resigned as a councillor and party member following allegations made on social media. |
| 2023 | The party expanded to 22 council seats by recruiting three additional county councillors: Mary Roche from Waterford City and County Council, Eoin Ó Broin from South Dublin County Council, and Liam Quaide from Cork County Council. |
| November 2023 | Social Democrats put forward a Dáil motion seeking to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, and to place economic sanctions on Israel during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. The motion was voted down by the government. |
| October 2023 | Party presented an alternative budget advocating for a new tax on assets over 1 million euro and proposing to increase the minimum wage by 2 euro to €13.30 per hour. |
| July 4 2023 | Cian O'Callaghan was appointed to the newly created role of deputy party leader. |
| March 1 2023 | Holly Cairns was announced as the new leader of the Social Democrats after being the sole candidate for the position. |
| February 22 2023 | Roisin Murphy and Diane Shortall announced their step down as co-leaders of the Social Democrats. |
| February 22 2023 | Ivana Bacik and Gary Gannon announced they would step down as co-leaders of the Social Democrats, marking a leadership transition. |
| February 22 2023 | Dominic Murphy and Roisin Shortall announce they will step down as co-leaders of the Social Democrats. |
| 2020 | Social Democrats contested Seanad elections, maintaining their representation with 1 seat. |
| 2020 | Social Democrats participated in the Seanad elections, establishing their initial parliamentary representation. |
| 2020 | Social Democrats released their party manifesto with comprehensive climate policy proposals, including commitments to build cycle lanes, reduce public transport fares, create a dedicated public transport policing unit, ban fracking, and pledge compliance with the Paris Agreement climate targets. |
| 2020 | Social Democrats released their election manifesto, proposing key education policy reforms including making primary school education free, reducing third-level education fees, and expanding the SUSI student grant system. |
| 2020 | Social Democrats released a manifesto proposing to ban exploitative work contracts, encourage union membership, and protect younger workers. |
| 2020 | In their election manifesto, the party proposed building 100,000 homes over five years through a new housing agency and pledged to end homelessness. |
| 2020 | In the general election, the party ran 20 candidates in 20 constituencies and increased their parliamentary seats to six. Re-elected were Róisín Murphy and Roisín Shortall, and newly elected were Holly Cairns (Cork South-West), Gary Gannon (Dublin Central), Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North), and Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow). |
| February 2020 | The Social Democrats participated in the 2020 general election, seeking to expand their political representation in the Irish parliament. |
| 2019 | Social Democrats contested local elections, receiving 39,644 first preference votes, representing 2.3% of the total votes and ranking 6th among political parties. |
| 2019 | Three members of the party's National Executive resigned following a review of Ellie Kisyombe's candidate status in Dublin's North Inner City LEA local election. |
| December 2019 | The Social Democrats proposed a motion of no-confidence in housing minister Eoghan Murphy, highlighting their criticism of the government's housing policies. |
| November 2019 | The Social Democrats contested 3 of 4 by-elections, with their candidates receiving between 2.5% and 4.4% of the vote, but did not win any seats. |
| May 2019 | The Social Democrats contested their first European Parliament elections, with Gary Gannon running in the Dublin constituency. He received 5.6% of first-preference votes, finishing 6th out of 19 candidates and was eliminated on the 14th count. |
| May 2019 | The party contested their first local elections, putting forward 58 candidates with 55% being women. 19 of the 58 candidates were elected, significantly increasing the party's representation in local government. |
| 2018 | At the party's National Conference, the Social Democrats formally adopted a progressive stance supporting decriminalization of sex work, following the New Zealand model, and became one of the few Irish parties to do so. |
| 2018 | Social Democrats continued recruiting county councillors, including Dermot Looney from South Dublin County Council, Paul Mulville from Fingal County Council, and June Murphy from Cork County Council. |
| May 25 2018 | The Social Democrats supported a 'Yes' vote in the Referendum to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, advocating for reproductive rights in Ireland. |
| January 2018 | The party called for a nationwide rent freeze to address housing affordability issues. |
| 2017 | Social Democrats began recruiting sitting county councillors, including Jennifer Whitmore from Wicklow County Council, Joe Harris from Cork County Council, Dermot Looney from South Dublin County Council, Paul Mulville from Fingal County Council, and June Murphy from Cork County Council. |
| May 2017 | The Social Democrats published the Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill to eliminate loopholes in the vacant site levy and increase penalties for land-hoarding developers. |
| February 2 2017 | Stephen Donnelly joins Fianna Fáil after leaving the Social Democrats. |
| 2016 | Social Democrats achieved 3.0% of first preference votes in the Dáil Éireann election, led by Catherine Murphy, Róisín Shortall, and Stephen Donnelly, and remained in Opposition. |
| 2016 | Leadership changes with Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall continuing to lead the party, representing Kildare North and Dublin North West constituencies. |
| September 5 2016 | Stephen Donnelly resigns as joint leader and leaves the Social Democrats, expressing sadness about the departure and citing partnership challenges. |
| May 2016 | The Social Democrats form a technical group within the Dáil with the Green Party. |
| February 2016 | Stephen Donnelly left the Social Democrats party, reducing the founding leadership to two members, Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall. |
| February 26 2016 | In the 2016 general election, the Social Democrats contested their first national election, winning three seats in the Dáil Éireann with candidates Róisín Shortall, Catherine Murphy, and Stephen Gannon. |
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This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Social Democrats (Ireland) & Social Democrats Front Bench (Ireland), which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.