Sinn Féin surge leaves Labour severely depleted

A Sinn Féin surge in Dublin City has left a bruised Labour party with just a fraction of its seats and the loss of some of its high-profile councillors.

Attention is now turning to what alliances will be formed following the election of a large number of anti-austerity candidates, including Independents.

Already after the shift in the political landscape at City Hall over the weekend there is talk about Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Labour joining forces following their drubbing at the polls.

An analysis of the results also reveals that Labour clearly ran too many candidates, fielding three hopefuls in five of the nine wards which returned one or no seats.

Sinn Féin more than doubled its representation in Dublin, but it could have in fact elected even more candidates. It now controls Dublin City, with 16 of the 63 seats.

Chris Andrews, the former Fianna Fáil TD who famously switched parties, topped the poll for Sinn Féin in Pembroke-South Dock with a quota and a half. But he did not have a running mate.

The party topped the poll in seven of the nine Dublin city wards in the North Inner City, Crumlin-Kimmage, Cabra Finglas, Beaumont-Donaghmede, Ballymun, Ballyfermot-Drimnagh, and Pembroke-South Dock. The party elected three councillors in some wards.

Labour’s fall from 19 to just eight seats was epitomised by Lord Mayor Oisin Quinn, the nephew of Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, losing his seat in Rathgar-Rathmines.

The largely affluent area returned just one Labour candidate, with the city’s longest serving councillor Mary Freehill keeping her seat.

After her win, she told the Irish Examiner: “It’s time for Eamon Gilmore to start leading the party and stop being just a minister.”

She said the next move for newly elected councillors would be “who would do the business with whom”.

Elsewhere, though Labour party organiser Brian McDowell, who advised candidates, failed to get a seat in Beaumont-Donaghmede.

Speculation now centres on if Sinn Féin, with its majority of seats in the city, will push to have its own lord mayor in place for the 2016 Easter Rising commemorations.

While People Before Profit took five seats in wards, in many cases candidates were just short of getting enough transfers to secure a seat.

Overall nearly half of seats went to Independent and Sinn Féin, more than the combined total for Labour, Fine Gael, and Fianna Fáil.

Fianna Fáil will see their numbers increase from six to 10 on the council, after their dismal performance in the 2009 vote.

The party elected two in Clontarf, north Dublin, including former minister Sean Haughey.

The Greens saw gains, with social worker Patrick Costello topping the poll in Rathgar-Rathmines and former TD Ciaran Cuffe taking a seat in the North Inner City.

Fine Gael lost four of its 12 seats, but one councillor, Ballymun’s Noel Rock, admitted the party needed to acknowledge the hurt new taxes were causing people.

For more in depth updates and analysis on the fallout from this year's election and access to our comprehensive results database visit our special Election 2014 section.