BATTLE FOR DUBLIN BAY GOES TO THE WIRE
THE battle of Dublin Bay South failed to entirely capture the imagination of local voters with turnout for the by-election standing at 38% at 9pm last night.
Ringsend had one of the highest turnouts at 45%. At one polling station in Sandymount, turnout was 41.5%, while 40.4% of people came out to vote in Harold’s Cross.
Although the vote was initially deemed to be a race between Fine Gael’s James Geoghegan and Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, Labour’s Ivana Bacik emerged as the late frontrunner to take the seat.
Yesterday Ms Bacik said: ‘When we look back at the results of the February 2020 general election, you might say that’s why the outgoing government didn’t do well, because
‘Twirling a paper sign in Ballsbridge’
they were perceived as having failed to deliver.’
Fine Gael was left pulling out all the stops yesterday to rally lastminute support for Mr Geoghegan.
Some 100 party activists took to the streets from 4am on Thursday morning for a leaflet drop.
The ‘good morning’ leaflet, seen by the Irish Daily Mail on Wednesday, contained a message from MEP Frances FitzGerald branding the Dublin City Councillor an ‘energetic and public representative’.
Ministers Simon Harris and Paschal Donohoe were later pictured standing on a traffic island in the middle of Merrion Road, Ballsbridge, canvassing early-morning commuters on their way to work.
Mr Donohoe later took to Twitter to confirm he was indeed ‘twirling a paper sign on the traffic island in Ballsbridge’. Throughout the day, a number of the party’s TDs and Senators were pictured campaigning for Mr Geoghegan.
Fine Gael also cancelled its parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday in order to canvass.
Fianna Fáil, who went ahead with their weekly meeting on Wednesday, also sent out fresh election literature ahead of polling yesterday backing its candidate Deirdre Conroy.
Sinn Féin’s Ms Boylan, meanwhile, admitted that it would be a ‘David and Goliath battle’ for the party to win the seat.
She said: ‘It’s all to play for still, we’re under no illusions that it is a Fine Gael seat to lose.’
Counting started at 9 o’clock this morning at the RDS with strict social distancing measures in place.
A number of sources across different political parties have told the Mail that they do not expect the count to last long and a winner of the seat in Dublin Bay South could be known by this afternoon.