All politics is local - and local politics have arrived in full force in Dublin's Mansion House. On Monday, FF's Michael Mulcahy was elected Lord Mayor by the City Council and Labour's Eric Byrne was elected deputy. The deputy job is relatively new, and for the first time, Dublin's two first citizens are members of different parties. If that is not difficult enough, both men are from the same constituency - Dublin South Central - and both have been selected by their parties to stand in the five-seater in the general election, which will occur during their year in office. Not only will they be fighting each other, but they will be also be opposing sitting deputies from their own parties.
Expect much rivalry. In fact, it has started already. Byrne told Quidnunc that when he arrived at the Mansion House for Monday's post-election party and battled his way through the anti bin-charge protesters with his 25 supporters he was told he could only bring in 10. "The Fianna Fβil people informed me that this was Michael's house. They had their list but I had my list too. They said they were overbooked and I was limited to 10.
"Unfortunately, I couldn't choose between my supporters so I had to retreat to Buswells. It was disturbing that we could not be facilitated. The other downside was that it cost me a couple of hundred quid." There is, of course, free beer in the Mansion House, courtesy of Guinness.
The deputy mayor misses out on this - and the free house, the free car and the allowances. Byrne, though, says that while there will be rivalries, especially in the run-up to the election, "we are going to work in hand in glove to represent the city and there will be no party politics". He had his first job as deputy on Wednesday - he represented the Lord Mayor at the US embassy's Fourth of July party.