Fianna Fáil looks set for capital punishment

DUBLIN represents a black pool of despair for Fianna Fáil to such an extent that it is now renamed Meltdown City.

The party looks set for the humiliation of having no MEP in the capital on June 5 and, perhaps, seeing its city council tally halve from 12 to just six seats, with the spoils being divided between Labour and Fine Gael.

The strange death of Fianna Fáil Dublin has been a gathering political phenomenon for the past decade, but this election will see the last rites said over the party in the city.

The strong working class vote the party held sway over for so long has gone en masse to Labour and Sinn Féin. And the white collar anger felt at the public service pay ram-raids has struck fear into the middle classes, who now look to Eamon Gilmore to protect the public sector from the emergency needs of the public purse. Niffy Dubliners also strongly dislike the sheer Offallyisation of Brian Cowen, which does not play well in the Pale.

Despite a collapse in seat numbers in 2004, Fianna Fáil still retained the highest share of the vote at 22%. This time out it will be lucky to come third behind Labour and Fine Gael and may well also slip behind Sinn Féin – a cataclysmic result.

Labour will easily top the poll and boost its number of councillors from 15 to expand its lead over the other parties in the chamber. Sinn Féin will be looking to hold the ten seats it won last time out in what was a major upset at the time.

The city council and its three surrounding Dublin authorities will pioneer Ireland’s first directly elected mayor next year, which will shake-up the status quo massively. The role will be modelled on London, where an executive mayor has sweeping powers over many areas of daily life.

With Fianna Fáil opinion solidifying firmly against allowing him a presidential run in 2011, Bertie Ahern has set his heart on securing the mayoral nomination in what he sees as his urban fiefdom.

However, the verdict of the Mahon corruption probe is expected to finally see the light of day later this year, which may well put paid to Mr Ahern’s hopes for a comeback. And if Mahon doesn’t do for Mr Ahern, there is still that little matter of whether he was tax compliant while Taoiseach or not. The Revenue will have to disclose the outcome of that unedifying matter within the next few months as well.

Independent councillor Maureen O’Sullivan is expected to hold her council seat but fail to win the Dublin Central Dáil by-election she is contesting as Tony Gregory’s successor.

While 46 of the 52 incumbents are standing again, significant boundary changes will also have an impact.

The city council is likely to remain a Green free zone as the party feels the chill sting of the backlash from voters over its participation in Government.

Dublin City Council is the country’s biggest local authority with 6,700 staff and a budget of €1.5 billion. The scale of the service sector is vast with the need to provide 113 million gallons of water each day for a population extending to 2.2m, as well as overseeing 500,000 vehicle movements each day in the city – which is often in total gridlock.

With pretensions to competing as a world city, Dublin has its own international research section to keep an eye on its performance against other continental capitals. The council is trying to wrestle the title of European City of Science and Capital of Sport, as well as to attract the Uefa soccer and Heineken Cup finals to Dublin.

Of the 119 people standing in the 11 constituencies, only 29 candidates are women and two wards, Ballymun Finglas and Donaghmede, have no women candidates at all, with only South West Inner City offering a balanced gender choice for voters.