Fine Gael gain looks on the cards

Cork South Central (5 seats):Cork South Central has been, if not the most volatile of the five Cork constituencies over the past 20 years, then certainly the most reflective of changing Irish political trends, proving at various stages a fertile ground for smaller parties like the PDs and the Greens.

The constituency has seen major population growth in middle-class areas like Rochestown, Douglas and Blackrock, as well as in the commuter town of Carrigaline, although it also includes more settled working- class communities in areas like Togher and Ballyphehane.

In 2002, Fianna Fáil polled a healthy 48.57 per cent, but with Micheál Martin accounting for 26.68 per cent of this, the party had to scrap for the last seat with John Dennehy defeating Independent Kathy Sinnott by just six votes to join Martin and Batt O'Keeffe in the Dáil.

O'Keeffe has been forced to move with the transfer of Ballincollig to Cork North West and Fianna Fáil has added young Carrigaline-based councillor Michael McGrath - who polled almost 4,000 votes in the 2004 county council elections - to replace him on its three-candidate ticket.

Fine Gael is running sitting TD Simon Coveney, former TD Deirdre Clune, who lost her seat in 2002 but bounced back with the highest vote in the 2004 city council elections, and councillor Jerry Buttimer, who won almost 2,000 votes in Bishopstown in the same local elections.

Dan Boyle is defending the first Green seat to be won outside Dublin, while Labour is running Cllr Ciarán Lynch. The PDs have Senator John Minihan, Henry Cremin is running for Sinn Féin and Independent Morgan Stack has a conspiracy theory about September 11th, 2001.

A recent poll for the Evening Echo had Martin on 20 per cent, followed by Coveney and Boyle both on 14 per cent, with Dennehy and McGrath both on 11 per cent, Lynch on 9 per cent, Buttimer on 7 per cent, Cremin and Clune on 6 per cent and Minihan on 2 per cent.

Most pundits agree Martin will top the poll again with possibly up to 22 per cent and most also agree that Coveney and Boyle will be next home, leaving up to five candidates battling for the last two seats.

Undoubtedly the most surprising feature of the poll was the 6 per cent rating for Clune, which is very much at odds with Fine Gael's own polls over the past 12 months which have her at about 10-12 per cent on foot of a highly- successful profile raising year as lord mayor in 2005-2006.

The low showing of Clune is all the more surprising in that in 2002, when Fine Gael took a hammering and saw its vote in the constituency drop to 19.4 per cent, she still polled 10 per cent. Her vote should be higher than 6 per cent.

Buttimer has a strong base in Bishopstown and will take a good vote there but Clune should have a wider profile which should benefit her when it comes to picking up lower preferences.

For FF, McGrath has a strong base in Carrigaline and is targeting growth areas like Douglas and Rochestown, but Dennehy has benefited from the return of parts of Bishopstown and Glasheen after a boundary change which saw 25,000 votes return to South Central. Both need Martin to suppress his first-preference vote, but Dennehy should benefit more than McGrath from the elimination of Cremin, though Boyle and Lynch look like being the main beneficiaries of Sinn Féin transfers.While FF is still in with a good chance of taking a third seat, the odds look to favour an Opposition candidate from Clune, Buttimer and Lynch with one of the Fine Gael candidates looking the more likely.

Health seems to be cropping up regularly, but undoubtedly the issue of the Cork airport terminal debt is being mentioned, as are concerns about infrastructure and traffic congestion particularly in Carrigaline, Douglas, Rochestown and across to Bishopstown. The area did well in employment terms over the past five years and there have been some recent major job announcements (GSK, VMware, IBM, Abtran) but the recent closure of Motorola with the loss of 330 high-tech jobs and a rationalisation at Pfizer have created concerns.