Race runner-up puts her best foot forward

Mary Banotti marched into Dublin Castle for the election count at the same break-neck pace she has maintained over the past six weeks. Foot forward, smiling fixedly for the cameras, she sped up the staircase to the count centre in St Patrick's Hall.

A small group of people, mostly young Fine Gaelers who have staffed her Dublin headquarters during the campaign, cheered the arrival of their candidate.

At the top of the staircase, the Banotti party collided with Dana and her entourage, whose arrival a few minutes earlier had set the photographers' flashguns working overtime.

Second place in the election, now second on the stairs as the international media crowded round the former Eurovision winner and surprise package of an otherwise predictable election.

The two women exchanged hugs that spoke of relief as much as pleasure at the outcome.

Tears flooded down the face of her daughter, Tania, and many of her supporters, but Banotti herself maintained her composure.

Magnanimous in defeat, she thanked her supporters, her opponents and even the Irish people. "I was grateful to them before this started and I'm even more grateful now."

She congratulated Mary McAleese, adding cryptically: "I look forward to working very closely with her from now on."

Elsewhere in the hall, the Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, was boasting about his party's highest vote in 15 years.

But would the result have been closer if John Bruton had not intervened? He didn't agree: "My intervention was made on a fundamental issue of principle, that we must build a bridge to both communities in the North. Peace can never be achieved without that."

Bruton said McAleese had dealt with the tests she faced "with poise and distinction and intellectual rigour". This would help her as President.

As time dragged on and the first count was repeatedly delayed, Banotti left the hall. But she told reporters: "I'm a professional. I've been here before and I'll be here again."