SINN FEIN:SINN Féin has suffered significant losses on Dublin City Council and elsewhere, but made strategic gains on some local authorities.
In Dublin City Council, the party will have just six seats – down from 11 in 2004.
The high-profile Daithí Doolan was beaten in the South Inner City ward. His campaign was troubled due to the intervention of Esther Uzell, the sister of Joseph Rafferty, who was shot dead outside his apartment. Ms Uzell has long claimed that the IRA killed her brother, and that Doolan knew the killers’ identity.
Doolan has previously denied knowing the killers and has called for anyone with information about the murder to co-operate with gardaí.
In Wexford, the party lost its two councillors, including past general election candidate John Dwyer, in the New Ross ward.
The loss of Paul Donnelly in the Mulhuddart ward will be a blow to the party’s intention to run him as a Dáil candidate in the next general election. In Wicklow the party won two seats, including John Brady in Bray, and he may be selected as the party’s general election standard-bearer.
The party’s hopes of regaining the Dáil seat it once had in Dublin South West have been revived following two victories in Tallaght South and Central. The question now may be whether former TD Seán Crowe or newcomer Cahal King, who took 2,300 votes in Tallaght South, should run.
Jonathan O’Brien’s poll-topping result to win a seat on Cork City Council in the north-west ward will spur hopes that Sinn Féin can make gains in a constituency where Fianna Fáil holds two Dáil seats.
The Shell to Sea controversy in Mayo may have benefited Sinn Féin’s vote there. Rose Conway Walsh was elected in the Belmullet ward.
