FF face election dogfight to hold three Cork seats

Fianna Fáil could still hold three seats in the battleground constituency of Cork South Central, despite a 7% drop in the party’s vote, according to a poll in today's Evening Echo newspaper.

Today’s Evening Echo/Red C poll shows Labour overtaking Fine Gael to emerge as the main challenger for a vulnerable Fianna Fáil seat.

Labour newcomer Cllr Ciarán Lynch has increased his party’s share of the vote from 5% to 9% and is challenging Cllr Michael McGrath (FF) for the last seat in the five seat constituency.

The biggest loser for Fianna Fáil is Micheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, who sees a massive drop in his first preference vote from 27% to 20%. However, he remains as a poll-topper and still takes the first seat on the first count. Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney (up 5%) and Green party TD Dan Boyle (also up 5%) are set to be comfortably re-elected.

In this poll Fianna Fáil’s John Dennehy and Michael McGrath take the fourth and fifth seats by a very tight margin.

Despite an overall rise in the Fine Gael vote from 19% to 26%, the party is not poised to retake the seat lost by Deirdre Clune in 2002. Former Lord Mayor Deirdre Clune is running neck and neck with her colleague Jerry Buttimer, but neither is taking enough first preferences in this poll to be in the shake-up in the final counts.

Overall, the Government parties of Fianna Fáil and the PDs are running at 44%, behind the alternative coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens which is on 49%.