Without a detailed tally, nobody could predict who would win a tense race for the final seat, writes MICHAEL O'REGAN.
THE DUBLIN European Parliament election count was a long day’s journey into a tense night. The two key players were outgoing Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan and Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, who was hot on his heels for the third seat.
From early on, it was clear that they would fight to the finish, with the transfers of Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald deciding if the seat would remain with the third generation of a distinguished Fianna Fáil family or move on to an uncompromising Dublin-based socialist from the Dingle peninsula.
The election of Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell and Labour’s Proinsias De Rossa was inevitable.
For Higgins and Ryan though, it was a long, long wait to know their fate in the huge RDS hall. The absence of a detailed tally meant that the outcome could not be predicted with any certainty.
Ryan left for a break and returned at 3am for a council of war with his team, which included Minister of State Conor Lenihan, Fianna Fáil general secretary Seán Dorgan and former FF TD and senator Séamus Cullimore.
They sat at a table and scrutinised the figures. Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin joined them.
Joe Higgins paced the floor, sometimes conferring with party associates. At 4am, he was philosophical, refusing to call the result and emphasising the transient nature of politics. Party activist Emmett Farrell had been closely monitoring ballot papers on Higgins’s behalf.
He was confident Higgins would make it, but he was also conscious of the false dawn of the 1996 Dublin West byelection when Higgins came close to defeating Fianna Fáil’s Brian Lenihan.
“At lunchtime, Charlie McCreevy said that Fianna Fáil could not win it, but Joe eventually lost it by 270 votes,” he said. “We are not taking anything for granted.”
As the time for the final count neared, the Ryan camp thought Higgins might not get enough to eclipse their candidate. The word was that many Sinn Féin supporters had opted to give McDonald number one and then stopped.
As McDonald’s 55,429 votes were distributed, Higgins trailed Ryan by 11,375 votes. When the seventh and final count was announced at 5.15am, Higgins was comfortably ahead, leading Ryan with 82,366 votes to 76,956.
Ryan, grandson of Fianna Fáil minister Dr Jim Ryan and son of Senator Eoin Ryan, made a graceful exit and said that it was back to the drawing board for him.
Higgins spoke of how the Government had targeted working people and the unemployed and duly got their response. Outside the RDS dawn was rising, a metaphor for the remarkable achievement of the indomitable Higgins.