Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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1409. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the manner in which MEPs who do not serve their full term are replaced; whether the list of replacement candidates submitted in advance of the nomination deadline, and published alongside the notice of poll, can subsequently be amended by the party or independent candidate who originally submitted it; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40965/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Section 19 of, and Part XIII of the Second Schedule to, the European Parliament Elections Act 1997 (as amended) provides the legislative framework for the filling of a vacancy that may arise from among the persons who have been elected in Ireland to be Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It is the Clerk of the Dáil who is the competent authority for the purpose of the filling of casual vacancies from Ireland and their subsequent notification to the European Parliament.

In broad terms, casual vacancies are filled from the replacement candidates list presented by the political party or non-party candidate that won the seat at the preceding election. The vacancy is filled by the person standing highest on the relevant list who is both eligible and willing to become an MEP. A replacement candidate who is a national of a Member State other than Ireland must make a statutory declaration to confirm that the person does not stand deprived of the right to stand as a candidate under the law of that person’s home Member State.

If no replacement candidates list was presented in respect of the MEP who won the seat at the election or it is not possible to fill the vacancy from the relevant list, it is a matter for Dáil Éireann to select a person to fill the vacancy from any other replacement candidates list presented for that particular constituency at that election. The legislation does not provide for the amendment of a replacement candidate list following an election to the European Parliament.