After a relatively good year, the PDs are facing theelection with the wreckage of Bobby Molloy's career trailing in their wake.Mark Brennock assesses the party's prospects
I felt initially it was all over," said one senior PD figure yesterday about the aftermath of the Molloy resignation which rocked the party this week. "I was personally shattered." Some other party deputies and candidates felt the same, but insist now that the damage to the party may be limited.
They have almost certainly lost their seat in Galway West, but the concern for the PDs is that all politics may not be local. The PDs have a very small margin for error, and any dent in the party's national image could have disastrous consequences.
Just two of their current four deputies are contesting the election. Mary Harney's seat is seen as relatively safe. Liz O'Donnell, as she said herself yesterday, is "always struggling for the fourth or fifth seat in Dublin South. I don't take anything for granted".
The party's highest hopes of a new seat rest on Tom Parlon in Laois-Offaly. Michael McDowell will challenge for the last seat in Dublin South East.
The seat held by Des O'Malley, now retiring, is almost certainly lost, as is that of Mr Molloy. Mae Sexton (Longford-Roscommon), Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire), John Minihan (Cork North Central) and Kate Walsh (Kildare North) are very long shots.
That leaves them with a probable core of two seats and the prospect of improvement on that dependent on having a very good national campaign.
The Molloy seat, if lost, would go to Fianna Fáil, therefore making no difference to the outgoing Government's total numbers. But any slippage will seriously weaken the influence the PDs can have in the Government, if it is re-elected.
The PDs had had a good year so far. In recent months they had recruited Parlon and McDowell as well as Kate Walsh in Kildare, and party officials say their organisation is in much better shape than it was six months ago.
Yesterday party officials and candidates were insisting there was no avalanche of disapproval in their key constituencies over the Molloy affair. They were hopeful - if not yet confident - that the issue would disappear by polling day. According to Tom Parlon, canvassing yesterday in Laois-Offaly: "There will be a new issue every day between now and the election."
The Tánaiste put a brave face on the situation yesterday, rejecting suggestions that the affair has damaged the PDs' credibility. "I do not believe our credibility is damaged," she said on RTÉ Radio from Cork, where she was canvassing. "Bobby Molloy has paid a heavy price, and there is genuine understanding and sympathy for the awful situation he finds himself in.
"I believe the Progressive Democrats are a resilient party. We have been written off many times before. We are not going just to contest the election. We are going to fight it and we are going to win and we are going to be stronger in the next Dáil than we were in this Dáil.
PD candidates around the State maintain that, while some voters are mentioning the issue, they have no sense of major electoral damage arising from it. Their problem, however, is that even minor damage would be enough to make the difference between victory and defeat for precariously placed candidates.
Ms O'Donnell said yesterday the public reaction was "mixed" in Dublin South, where middle-class voters are more influenced by "ethics and standards issues" than the average.
"There is an acceptance that his resignation is appropriate, and that he resigned quickly and honourably. If he hadn't, it might be different," she said.
The party chairman and Cork North Central candidate John Minihan says he went canvassing on Wednesday and Thursday night and was initially dreading it, "because I didn't know what to expect. But people didn't challenge me on it, nobody said they wouldn't vote for me because of it. I can't say was that just politeness or is it the reality".
According to Tom Parlon in Laois-Offaly, he is picking up no signs that the affair will have a negative impact on his vote. "People are raising local issues. A few say they are aghast that a man like Bobby Molloy would be in this situation, but there is general sympathy for him, too," he said.
"People are mentioning it all right," said Dún Laoghaire PD candidate Fiona O'Malley after canvassing door to door yesterday morning. "But they are expressing sympathy for the victim and also for Bobby Molloy."
The fevered discussion of the drama in Leinster House and in the media was not matched outside that "hothouse", she went on. As for damage to the party's image as one of high standards and probity, she maintained that the rapid resignation had upheld these standards, and contrasted to the slowness in other parties to deal with more serious transgressions.
"It's been a difficult week. It's not ideal. I wish it hadn't happened, but he did the right thing, he did it quickly, and things move on," she said.