Welcome the Ahern and Brennan Dynasties to 2009

Rather subdued around the count centre in the RDS at present. The media room is yet to fill up – heads from all the main outlets are kicking about though, sticking their noses into the tally centres and such. It’s a time for mingling for the press corps, get the pulse and such. I was present at a group interview with Shay Brennan earlier, he looked shell-shocked, the picture above says it all.

Conor Lenihan arrived as the press gang dispersed, he put one hand behind Shay’s head, pulled it forward and kissed him on the forehead. It was like something a manager would do after he substituted his favourite player for having a total shocker – surreal. The only interesting thing Brennan said during the interview was “I’m in politics for the long-haul” and “yes, I would consider accepting aSenead nomination”. Fianna Fáil would of course have to be in power for Brenner to get a nomination though…

The newspaper journos are already sticking copy together for tomorrow’s paper. “Fianna FAIL”, “Cowen Frown” (ah let’s leave the catchy headlines to the sub-eds, eh?). Many of them are surprised to see Ganley polling so well. There’s talk of Maurice Ahern not alone getting annihilated in the Dublin Central Bye-elections (he’s in fifth place currently at 12.5%) but possibly losing his council seat. If he does lose hisCllr prefix it’ll be interesting to see how or if Fianna Fáil in Dublin Central change their tune towards Mary FitzPatrick.

Dublin City Council has been a left-of-centre zone for the last number of years, although the mayor’s chain has been around the neck of FiannaFáil’s Eibhlin Byrne the party itself have just 12 seats compared to Labour’s 15. While Fine Gael and Sinn Féin both hold 10 seats from the 2004 elections they both look set to come out with more after this weekend.

If Dublin City Council is to be used as barometer (I’m not saying it should) – Fianna Fáil look set to lose somewhere near 45 seats. It they do get hit with such a big blow, senators will get itchy.

PS I’m still happy I put money on Eoin Ryan keeping his seat.