The Labour Party in Kerry South has written this week to the small South Kerry Independent Alliance (SKIA) party seeking a merger.
The letter to the secretary of the independent group, Mary Lehane, comes after much speculation about the return to the Labour fold of the alliance and its Kerry County Councillor Michael Gleeson.
Cllr Gleeson, who is also a town councillor in Killarney, is widely seen as Labour's best chance of retaining a seat in Kerry South, now that sitting TD Breeda Moynihan-Cronin has announced she is not seeking re-election to the Dáil.
A former Kerry footballer and a fluent Irish speaker who is outspoken on environmental issues, Cllr Gleeson was approached at the last general election by Fine Gael, but declined to run for them after consulting with his party.
Should he decide to run for Labour, Cllr Gleeson, a schoolteacher in Killarney, would be the only candidate from the town to emerge so far. Fine Gael's likely nominees, Cllr Tom Sheahan and Cllr Séamus Cosai Fitzgerald, are based at the extreme edges of the constituency in Rathmore and in Dingle respectively.
Cllr Gleeson, who is in his 50s, would therefore give Labour a distinctive edge over Fine Gael who are seeking to win back the seat lost to Labour in the three-seater constituency.
Sitting TDs John O'Donoghue, from Cahirciveen, and Jackie Healy-Rae, originally from Kilgarvan, are also both seen as representing the rural parts of the constituency.
Originally a Labour candidate, Cllr Gleeson split from the party when Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, daughter of the late Labour TD Michael Moynihan, was added by party headquarters to the ticket in the early 1990s.
According to a Labour source yesterday who confirmed the letter had been sent to SKIA, now that Ms Moynihan-Cronin is out of the running, many people are eager to woo Cllr Gleeson back.
"A lot of people in the Labour Party who would feel he was hard done by - but out of loyalty to the Moynihans wouldn't have said so - and are eager to see him run for Labour," the source said.
Cllr Gleeson has stayed largely silent on the issue but has said he would give anyone the courtesy of a meeting, if this was properly requested. The real difficulty will be SKIA stalwarts who are still smarting over the party treatment of Cllr Gleeson in the Dick Spring era, according to sources.
Labour figures in Kerry South had approached footballer Séamus Moynihan, but this had come to nothing.