SINN FÉIN MAY well have done what it has failed to do in elections past, it has got out the vote.
In areas that have traditionally suffered from low turn out, voters have come out this time and it looks like many of them have gone for Sinn Féin.
To take one example in Dublin, the party has really got out the vote in Clondalkin where it’s on course to exceed the quota and take two seats. Among the Sinn Féin winners is one of the youngest candidates in these elections, 19-year-old Jonathan Graham.
The party is also on course for a whopper win in the Dublin European constituency with Lynn Boylan, on 24 per cent according to an RTÉ exit poll, now set to top the poll.
Anecdotal evidence from the count centre in Citywest suggests that Boylan is not only topping the poll in areas like Tallaght – where she is originally from – but that Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes is coming in third in his own back yard behind the Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy.
The exit poll data shows Hayes on 14 per cent along with Green Party candidate Eamon Ryan. While it had been assumed Hayes would take the second seat, he may land himself in a battle for the third.
But Fine Gael’s problems are nothing compared to Labour’s. One party source has descried the tallies from counts so far as “a f**king disaster”.
All over the capital it appears the junior coalition party is taking a battering with even Lord Mayor Oisin Quinn in danger of losing his Dublin City Council seat in Rathgar-Rathmines.
In the Dublin West by-election, the Labour candidate Loraine Mulligan was never expected to win but she is polling behind the Green Party’s Roderic O’Gorman.
All of this is Dublin-focused of course and it’s still very early days, but it is indicative of the anti-austerity vote that’s emerging across the country.
Independent and other, small party candidates are performing strongly.
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