Irvine East is one of the nine wards used to elect members of the North Ayrshire Council.

Created in 2007, the ward initially elected four councillors using the single transferable vote electoral system before a boundary review in 2017 reduced the number of councillors to three.

The area was a Labour stronghold with the party holding half the seats between 2007 and 2017.

Irvine East was created following the Fourth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2007 Scottish local elections.

As a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, local elections in Scotland would use the single transferable vote electoral system from 2007 onwards so Irvine East was formed from an amalgamation of several previous first-past-the-post wards.