FIANNA Fáil deputy leader Mary Hanafin is on course to hold her Dáil seat in Dún Laoghaire despite a serious decline in her party's vote, according to an Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI constituency poll.
The poll, conducted using a sample ballot paper, indicates that her fellow Fianna Fáil TD, Minister of State Barry Andrews, will lose his seat in the constituency which has been reduced from five seats to four since the last election.
The strong showing of Fine Gael across the State is reflected in the fact that the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, Seán Barrett, is set to top the poll narrowly ahead of Labour leader Eamon Gilmore.
The good news for Labour, however, is that the party is well positioned to win two seats in the constituency, with Senator Ivana Bacik on course to make it into the Dáil.
The last seat is shaping up to be a battle between Ms Bacik and left-wing activist Richard Boyd Barrett, and although the Labour Senator is behind on the first count she appears to be getting enough transfers to win the last seat.
Green TD Ciarán Cuffe looks to have very little chance of holding his seat in the constituency and is likely to be eliminated early in the count.
The second Fine Gael candidate, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, is narrowly behind Ms Bacik and Mr Boyd Barrett on the first count and would need to make significant gains over the next week to be in contention.
The percentage share of the first-preference vote won by the candidates is as follows: Seán Barrett 24 per cent; Eamon Gilmore 23 per cent; Mary Hanafin 10 per cent; Richard Boyd Barrett 10 per cent; Ivana Bacik 9 per cent; Barry Andrews 8 per cent; Mary Mitchell O’Connor 8 per cent; Ciarán Cuffe 4 per cent. Six Independents have 1 per cent or less.
Compared with the last general election, the Fianna Fáil vote is down by 17 per cent, the Labour vote is up 16 per cent, the Fine Gael vote up 9 per cent, the Green Party vote down almost 4 per cent and Mr Boyd Barrett’s vote unchanged.
Although Ms Hanafin is only two points ahead of her running mate Barry Andrews, she is more transfer-friendly than him. She will benefit from a strong transfer on his elimination and should take the third seat.
Although Fine Gael has marginally more votes than Labour, the wide gap between Seán Barrett and Ms Mitchell O’Connor makes a second seat difficult to win even though there are strong transfers between them.
The survey was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week through 500 in-home interviews at 50 sampling points across the constituency. Voters were given sample ballot papers and the margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 per cent. Almost 80 per cent of those polled marked the ballot paper.
There are 14 candidates in Dún Laoghaire, an increase of three compared with the last election.
The Irish Times has the best writing from the election.
Stephen Collins analyses the data from the Dun Laoghaire constituency poll while Dan O’Brien parses the underlying assumptions behind Fine Gael’s economic plans.
Harry McGee joins Fine Gael candidate Brian Hayes on the canvass.
Make sure to read them in our print edition or by subscribing to our daily epaper.