Recovering from such a humiliating defeat will be a tough challenge for Fianna Fáil, writes Mark Brennock.
They had expected it to be very bad, but it seems to be worse. Fianna Fáil appeared last night to be set to lose over 20 per cent of its local authority seats around the State. From 382 seats in 1999, they will be lucky to win just over 300 this time.
The party's first preference vote is at its lowest ever in a local government election. If these figures were repeated in a general election, the party would suffer a calamitous loss of around 20 Dáil seats.
Carlow was the only county that registered no loss of support. Losses in most other areas ranged from substantial to shocking.
In the Dublin City Council area Fianna Fáil won just 22 per cent of the vote, a drop of 13 percentage points which has led them to lose around half their seats.
In the other Dublin areas they won 21 per cent in Fingal, 25 per cent in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown and 26 per cent in South Dublin.
Areas worst affected by the drop in support include Waterford City (14 per cent), Limerick City (16 per cent) and Galway City (19 per cent). Other poor results were in Cork City (29 per cent) and County (30 per cent).
High profile Fianna Fáil losses in Dublin included former deputies Ms Marian McGennis and Ms Mary Mooney and aspiring deputy Mr Chris Andrews.
For Mr Andrews it is a particularly disappointing blow. With Dublin South East TD Mr Eoin Ryan committed to standing down from the Dáil at the next election now that he is an MEP, there was a Fianna Fáil seat up for grabs and Mr Andrews was favourite to win the nomination. The loss of his council seat is a setback to his hopes.
Mr Bertie Ahern remains secure in his post, presuming he wants to stay and that all the talk about the EU Commission presidency amounts to nothing.
However, while there were no expressions of hostility directed toward him from within the party yesterday, there were plenty of party figures willing to complain that the party had got it wrong in several areas. In Dublin, several party activists at the count over the weekend said that the handling of decentralisation had damaged the party.
The anti-Dublin tone of some Ministers' utterances on the project, which was coupled with the hillbilly-style whoops of triumph from rural deputies - not least Mr Tom Parlon - over the removal of jobs from the capital grated on many city voters.
Minister of State Mr Ivor Callely said voters were protesting against decentralisation and the state of the health and education services.
Mr Maurice Ahern said decentralisation had been an issue. Mr Michael Mulcahy TD mentioned bin charges, anti-smoking legislation and decentralisation.
Outside Dublin, the Hanly Report on the future of hospital services gave Opposition candidates ammunition against the Government.
Undoubtedly, there was residual anger arising from the changed economic message immediately after the 2002 election. Party activists acknowledge that many voters do not feel better off despite being told the economy is in good stead.
Minister Éamon Ó Cuív gave a general assessment yesterday, talking of the need to "look at what we are doing and examine why the public isn't supporting us. Maybe the lesson out of this is that the economy isn't everything".
In local government elections the economy is far from everything. Voters are not choosing a government to manage the economy, and can oppose the government on a whole range of issues. They exploited this opportunity to the full.
The ending of the dual mandate affected Fianna Fáil more than any other party, as they had more high profile deputies and senators - 52 in total - elected to councils in 1999 who could not run this time.
However, this was a significant problem for Fine Gael also, and they coped with it pretty well.
Just as it was wrong to write off Fine Gael after the 2002 election, so is it wrong to write off the Government parties' prospects of returning to power after the next general election.
The management of the economy will become a central issue in advance of the next general election, and the alternative will have to convince voters that they are up to the challenge.
There was a lot of talk from Ministers about listening to the voters and learning lessons. They have close to three years in which to do it.