Is it undemocratic that a person with fewer votes than another can become Taoiseach

No, because what count you get elected on is irrelevant in STV

SF tried banging the drum about later count elected candidates in an attempt to undermine them; and its going to backfire horribly if they manage their vote properly next time and end up with piles of TDs elected late,.

we dont vote for a Taoiseach - we vote for TDs. Leo has/had to be confirmed as Taoiseach by the dail to which he was elected.

democracy at work, as designed.

How is the Taoiseach elected?

Overview. Under the Constitution of Ireland, the Taoiseach is nominated by a simple majority of the voting members of Dáil Éireann. They are then formally appointed to office by the President, who is required to appoint whomever the Dáil designates, without the option of declining to make the appointment.

What if you grew up in a "socially deprived" area (i.e. an area that gets loads of money but the locals insist on pis$ing any potential opportunities up against a wall) but you decided to push ahead and better yourself and went out and got educated/qualified/trained and still wanted to live in your own community as an example of what can be achieved?

Obviously, having been educated, you are likely going to veer away from your PBPs and SFs etc should you wish to run for office to help effect some change. So you run for a different party or none. You likely aren't going to get the vote of the anything-but-British-ohh-ahh-up-the-ra-Celtic-and-ManU-jersey-wearers-kill-the-bankers-wheres-me-foreva-home voters. But imagine that despite those odds, you still get elected. It shouldn't mean that you are barred from a higher position just because of the density of density in your constituency

(density squared)

Because we have STV. Which it seems you completely don't understand.

The order in which someone is elected has absolutely no bearing on their position or legitimacy.

No because then the most popular party in any constituency could only run 1 candidate for fear of excluding their Leader from Taoiseach position by trying to bring in other party members.

Varadkar for example, had Emer Currie running beside him who took over 4% of the vote Varadkar otherwise would have got. In contrast in the last election SF stood single candidates inthat constituency so easier to top the poll.

Your suggestion could also rule out Taoiseach position for somebody just because a local independent protest vote or populist (see Healy Raes) tops their constituency on an entirely local issue.

no, because that is not how democracy works

+ we have STV

+ we don't elect the Taoiseach, the TDs do

Not at all. We have multi-seat constituencies. There are no prizes for being the first to be elected. The person who ends up topping the poll gets the same prize as the person who wins the last seat on the 15th count - a seat in the Dail. Anything beyond that is about local bragging rights and more often than not it comes down to different parties having different election strategies.

It's a lot easier to top polls when you don't have running mates. Most Sinn Fein candidates ran in constituencies on their own in 2020. That meant they didn't have to split the Sinn Fein vote with party colleagues in their constituencies. The same couldn't be said for FF and FG. They each ran at least 2 candidates in most constituencies. The net result of that is that Sinn Fein topped lots of polls but FF and FG were more efficient in maximising the number of seats that they won for the vote that they got - and that's what it's all about.

I guarantee that in the next election Sinn Fein will get a much larger number of votes but they will actually end up with fewer poll toppers around the country. That's because they'll be running way more candidates next time out.

If you're questioning its validity - no, you absolutely don't know how it works.

It is an exceptionally representative system, with the ability to boot out unlikable people (most PR systems use lists, which prevent this) and which returns fairly proportional results - particularly if most constituencies are 5 seats

But it works entirely on the idea that a seat is a seat and election order is utterly irrelevant. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the system.

You seem to be equating popularity with democracy.

You could argue that having a Dáil and Taoiseach at all is is undemocratic . I probably wouldn't be seen as democracy by the ancient Greeks, more a type of oligarchy, or maybe a limited form of tyranny, at least in practice. Bit imperfect as it is , it is probably as good an approximation as any modern country can get to democratic principles.

Yes.