Where the opposition lost Part 1

Labour/Fine Gael/Green missed out by 7 seats. Where were these 7 seats that they could have won that would have won the election. Here is 3 seats that decided the outcome.

Dublin South Central’s Eric Bryne lost out in the end by 68 votes to Sinn Fein. It is hard to know where these 68 votes came from as the local conditions that resulted in this probably are very minute. However I suggest that Sinn Fein may have got their vote out better then Labour. He did well when the Green Party candidate got eliminated. Also it is mainly a problem with vote management. Labour got 21.2% of the vote compared to Sinn Fein’s 10.2%. This should have meant they could have taken 2 seats. With Mary Upton topping the poll the Labour votes were there. Eric just needed 69 of hers. Seat one lost by poor management.

In Cork South Central Dan Boyle Green Party finance spokesman lost out by about 2,000 votes which is quiet a large amount. Clearly being that far behind it is hard to blame vote management. But his first preference dropped only by 7 votes. The problem was that last time out he gained from transfers from eliminated Labour and Fine Gael candidates. WHo this time took seats. This is not one of the seats the opposition lost.

Labour/Fine Gael and Green’s did not lose seats to Fianna Fail/PD they lost seats to each other. Where Fianna Fail gained seats to compensate for the ones they lost were at the expense of independents.

In South Tipperary Fianna Fail took the seat from Seamus Healy by about 60 votes. Seamus Healy was a left wing independent and from Clonmel. Labour’s candidate was Phil Prendergast Mayor of Clonmel. Who was eliminated on the 4th count with just under 4000 votes. If she had not run could Seamus Healy have gained 60 local votes. He got about 1,100 transfers from her while Martin Mansearh got about 100. I think if she had not run he would have had enough to deny Fianna Fail a seat. Whether he would have supported the opposition or not is not certain but it certain is more likely then Martin Manserah.

In Louth Mairead McGuinness lost out to Sinn Fein’s Arthur Morgan by about 1,100 votes. The problem here was the Labour candidate and green candidate. Between them they had enough for 2 seats but only took 1. One of the problems was that the Labour candidate sent most of the transfers into Fergus O’ Dowd. But I think the biggest fault was that the Greens had no pact with Fine Gael. The Green candidate has a greater share of votes into Sinn Fein then Mairead McGuinness if the pact was stronger. Then perhaps Mairead would have got enough to put her over the line.

Cost of seat 2 no green pact.

More later.