DEPUTY Maire Geoghegan Quinn will need her flackjacket in Castlebar tomorrow when she chairs the convention to pick four FF candidates for the new, five seat, Mayo constituency.
Sitting deputies Seamus Hughes, PJ Morley, and Tom Moffat will all be selected and the contest for the fourth place will be between Beverley Cooper Flynn, Pee's daughter, Cllr Al McDonnell and possibly others.
The tension arises on two fronts. Firstly since one five seater is replacing the two Mayo three seaters, FE will find it extremely difficult to hold three seats, let alone regain the fourth. It had four seats with Pee Flynn but when he went to Europe, FE lost in the by election to FG's Michael Ring. Now two of the FG deputies are Ministers - Enda Kenny and Jim Higgins - and Ring's constituency work is legendary. Secondly Ms Cooper Flynn believes the place on the ticket is rightly hers, given that her father held it for so long.
The contest has reminded FE leader Bertie Ahern that he entered the Dail 19 years ago this very month with PJ Morley. He shared a fifth floor office with six other deputies, among them the famous Pee. Only two are still in the Dail - himself and PJ. That same fifth floor room is now the office of the leader of FF and he has it to himself.