VOTERS WILL go to the polls today in an election that is set to change the face of Irish politics. More than three million people are entitled to vote in 43 constituencies being contested by a record 566 candidates.
Polling stations open at 7am and will remain open until 10pm. The counting of votes will begin at 9am tomorrow, with the first counts expected in the late afternoon.
Voters will elect 165 of the 166 TDs to the 31st Dáil, with the Ceann Comhairle, Séamus Kirk, being automatically returned.
When the 30th Dáil was dissolved on February 1st Fianna Fáil had 73 TDs, Fine Gael had 51, Labour 20, the Green Party six, Sinn Féin five, and Others eight.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny made a final appeal to voters yesterday urging them to turn their anger against the current administration into action when they vote.
He said the country was living with a national heartbreak as it reeled from the “national confidence trick” pulled on it by the Government and those to whom it had ceded power, the developers and banks.
“If this election is to take the political pulse of our nation, I want every beat and every vote to show a nation that looks with hope, generosity and courage to the future, and not with regret or hurt and bitterness of the past,” he said. In Cork, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin issued an appeal to his party’s traditional supporters not to desert the party for Independents.
He pledged that Fianna Fáil would be a vital force in the next Dáil where it could make a vital contribution to national policy by implementing the kinds of ideas that would help Ireland recover.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore again urged the electorate not to grant a monopoly of power to any one party saying that for the difficult tasks ahead the country needed a government that reflected the broad range of opinion in the country.
“We need a fair and balanced government, that brings people together. Labour is the party best placed to bring people together to take on our problems, and build a better and fairer Ireland.”
Sinn Féin’s Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the issue of transfers would be “crucial” and he called on voters who would not normally support his party to “ensure a strong responsible republican voice” in the next Dáil.
Green Party leader John Gormley claimed that Fine Gael and Labour were “home and dry” but said people could make their vote count by voting for his party. He said the Greens were fighting for the last seat in five Dublin constituencies and in Louth, Carlow-Kilkenny, Galway West and Cork South Central.
United Left Alliance candidates Joe Higgins MEP and Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett canvassed voters on Dublin’s Grafton Street and predicted the alliance could take as many as eight seats in the next Dáil.
There were reports last night that many voters had not received polling cards but people are entitled to vote as long as their name is on the register of electors, regardless of whether or not they have received the card.
All voters should bring a photo identification to polling stations. A passport, driving licence, employment cards containing a photograph, official student identity cards or travel documents containing photographs are all acceptable.
Candidates and canvassers may not come within 50m of the entrance to polling stations from 90 minutes before voting begins and they must not attempt to make any appeals to voters as they enter polling stations. When voting concludes the ballot boxes will be brought to the 43 count centres. They will be opened at 9am tomorrow. The returning officers will verify that all paperwork is correct before counting begins.
Offshore voting continued yesterday on the three Aran islands and Inishbofin in the Galway West constituency. Some 466 voters on seven islands in Cork South West vote today.