The 27th Seanad has been in office since February 2025. The 2025 Seanad election took place in January 2025, following the 2024 general election to the 34th Dáil on 29 November 2024. It was fully composed on 7 February 2025 on the nomination of members by the taoiseach.
It is the first Seanad to have a member from Aontú, as well as the first senator elected for the Social Democrats.
The Constitution of Ireland requires a general election for Seanad ÃÂireann, the senate of the Oireachtas, to take place no later than ninety days after the dissolution of Dáil ÃÂireann. There are 60 seats in the Seanad: 43 were elected on five vocational panels by serving politicians; 6 were elected in two university constituencies; and 11 are nominated by the taoiseach who was appointed after the assembly of the 34th Dáil. It will remain in office until the close of poll for the 28th Seanad.
The 33rd Dáil was dissolved on 8 November 2024. On 15 November 2024, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien, signed orders for the Seanad election, providing 29 January as the deadline for ballots in the university constituencies and 30 January as the deadline for ballots for the vocational panels. Under the Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Act 2024, this is to be the last Seanad in which the two university constituencies will exist. At the next Seanad general election, they will be replaced by a new Higher Education constituency.
On 7 February 2025, the taoiseach, Micheál Martin, nominated eleven members with their prior consent to be members of the Seanad.
On 12 February 2025, Mark Daly (FF) was proposed as Cathaoirleach by Fiona O'Loughlin (FF) and seconded by Shane Curley (FF). He was elected without a division.
On 19 February 2025, Maria Byrne (FG) was proposed as Leas-Chathaoirleach by Seán Kyne (FG) and seconded by Joe O'Reilly (FG). Eileen Flynn (Ind) was proposed by Frances Black (Ind) and seconded by Nessa Cosgrove (Lab). Byrne was elected by a vote of 36 to 15.
Government parties are denoted with bullets ().
27 of the 60 Senators elected or appointed to the 27th Seanad in the 2025 Seanad election were women. This represents 45% of all members of the Seanad. This is a much higher proportion of female members than the 25.5% of women who make up the membership of the other House of the Oireachtas, the 34th Dáil, elected in the 2024 general election. This 45% represents the highest number of women senators in Irish history, and the closest either House of the Oireachtas has ever come to 50/50 gender balance in its membership.
The Seanad has, historically, had a slightly higher representation of women members that the directly elected Dáil. As of March 2026, 139 of the 830 individuals who have served as Members of Seanad ÃÂireann since 1922 have been women (16.7% of senators). By contract as of March 2026, only 151 of the 1,032 TDs elected to serve in the Dáil since its foundation in 1919 have been women (14.63% of all TDs).,
The first women to hold a leadership position in either House of the Oireachtas came in the 16th Seanad in May 1982 when Senator Tras Honan was elected Cathaoirleach of the Seanad. She subsequently held the same position in the 18th Seanad from 1987 to 1989, and had served as Leas-Chathaoirleach in the period in between in the 17th Seanad (1983âÂÂ1987). When her sister Carrie Acheson was elected to the 22nd Dáil in June 1981, they became the first sisters to serve in the Oireachtas at the same time.
The Seanad was the fist House of the Oireachtas to have a woman elected as a deputy chairperson when Senator Evelyn Owens was elected Leas-Chathaoirleach of the 13th Seanad from 1973 to 1977.