Fine Gael takes first place as dominant party of local government

FINE GAEL roared into first place as the dominant party of local government as Fianna Fáil support collapsed and the Greens were all but wiped out.

Labour also made impressive gains, especially in Dublin where it cemented its position as the most popular choice for voters.

Sinn Féin was unable to sustain the momentum it achieved last time out, but saw losses in the capital evened out by gains in the rest of the country.

The Fianna Fáil vote dropped dramatically to 25% – down sharply from the then historic low of 32% it received five years ago.

Fine Gael surged past it to stand at 32%, while Labour climbed to 15%, Sinn Féin dropped to 7% and the Greens slumped to 2% with independents taking 18%.

Labour’s surge in the capital saw unofficial contact with Sinn Féin over the possibility of a left wing pact to run the city.

An anti-Government backlash saw Fianna Fáil hit especially badly in urban areas and the Greens with no representation in Dublin county or city where five of its six TDs are based.

With Fianna Fáil set to lose more than 50 seats across the country, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan admitted the results were a “big blow”, but tried to dismiss their impact by saying there was a similar anti-government vote across Europe.

He said the Government had been “under siege” with the banking crisis in recent months and had not “communicated the reality of all this as well as we might”.

With results from the contest for 1,627 council seats across 114 authorities not expected to be finalised until tomorrow, they show Fine Gael had bested Fianna Fáil in a national contest for the first time in its history.

In contrast, the Greens were almost wiped-out in local government with four lost seats in Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown, three in Fingal, two in South Dublin, as well as the single seat it won on Dublin City Council five years ago.

The party also lost its single seat in Carlow and in Galway City, and looks likely to cling onto just four councilors – two less than the number of TDs it has.

In Dublin, Fianna Fáil suffered the humiliation of slipping to third place in the popular vote where the only of its candidates to top a poll was Mary Fitzgerald who was widely believed to have been blocked form standing in the Dublin Central Dáil by-election because Bertie Ahern wanted his brother Maurice to be the candidate. The left-wing People Before Profit party also made a surprisingly strong showing in the Dublin area by taking five seats.

The rise of the left was also repeated in Cork where FF suffered heavy losses.