Sinn Féin knows the value its Northern Ireland profile adds to its politics in the Republic. The party is skilfully exploiting the dividend which flows from the proximity of the elections on each side of the Border. Once the polling stations closed in the Assembly elections on Wednesday night, Sinn Féin's focus immediately switched to the forthcoming general election in the Republic, writes Noel Whelan.
With no more votes to be got for their candidates North of the Border, their choice of spokespeople for election count programmes through Thursday and Friday owed everything to southern political considerations. Mary Lou McDonald, who is now fronting their endeavour to win a seat in Dublin Central, was their representative on RTÉ's election coverage. On UTV their spokesman was Pearse Doherty, who would have been unrecognisable to most Northern Ireland viewers but will, because of this exposure, be better known in Donegal where the channel has a relatively large viewership.
Sinn Féin have also pulled a clever stroke by organising their first major post-election rally for Dublin not Belfast.
Since midweek, the lamp-posts of Temple Bar and other parts of the city centre have been littered with colourful posters, featuring Gerry Adams, which were publicising a rally last night in an O'Connell Street hotel. Indeed, both Bairbre de Brún and Gerry Adams were quick to plug the Dublin event on their television outings.
Much of the media pack will follow Sinn Féin's every move over the next few weeks as the ins and outs of establishing a powersharing executive in Northern Ireland are played out. No camera in that pack will be able to turn any direction without catching a Dáil election candidate in shot.
Incidentally, I say that the posters are littering Dublin's street lamps because that is precisely what they are doing. Parties and candidates are only entitled to erect political posters once an election is called when the law provides a specific exemption from the Litter Acts. At other times, political posters, like any posters, are illegal. It is curious that Dublin City Council, which was very quick to take down posters which they viewed as being up too early before the 2004 local and European elections, seems to have made no effort to remove these Sinn Féin posters, or to fine the party for erecting them.
Sinn Féin progress in next May's election will depend primarily on the work done and campaigning yet to be done by their candidates. However, a lot will also depend on the coverage the party manages to attract in the media. Much of that coverage will be generated by events in Northern Ireland. However, there will also be more scrutiny of its policy proposals for the Republic. Interestingly, Gerry Adams's ardfheis speech last weekend had a greater focus on southern political issues than in previous years, but most of what he had to say about issues like health and equality was bland and negative.
Indeed, many interviews which Gerry Adams did over the ardfheis weekend were a tale of two halves. When asked about the Northern Ireland elections, Adams was fluent, informed, specific and competent.
However, when the interviewers changed tack and asked him about Sinn Féin's policy position for the general election down South, Adams was evasive, vague and even incoherent. One exchange between Adams and Bryan Dobson on RTÉ's Week in Politics was almost comical.
Dobson had to ask Adams six times whether the party was still proposing a new income tax rate of 50 per cent and asked him to whom this tax rate would apply, but he couldn't get a straight answer. Dobson then asked him five times whether the party was still committed to increasing corporation tax and again Adams ducked the question.
Sinn Féin surged in the Republic in 2002 and 2003 and then did very well in the 2004 local and European elections.
In the early months of 2005 SF's rise slowed and Adams's own popularity took a hit in the aftermath of the Northern Bank robbery and the Robert McCartney murder.
In mid-2005 the party got no real additional bounce in the polls for significant achievements, like IRA decommissioning and disbandment and the move from criminality. In part, this was because Sinn Féin was seen in the Republic as having been tardy in delivering these breakthroughs.
There is no reason to believe that the party will necessarily get an additional bounce here now for finally signing up to policing and even for re-establishment of a powersharing executive if that happens before May. Sinn Féin's strong performance in Wednesday's Assembly elections and the poor vote for dissident candidates standing on platforms opposing support for policing will leave many in the Republic wondering why it took SF so long to cross the policing Rubicon.
Although SF support has topped out in the polls, it still sits several percentage points above its vote share in the 2002 Dáil election. They should hold all their current seats, although the intensity of the competition in Kerry North, Dublin South Central and even Dublin South West means that this is not a foregone conclusion.
There are also half a dozen constituencies where the party is well-positioned to challenge for new Dáil seats - the two Donegal constituencies, four constituencies in Dublin. The party also has outside chances in Wexford, Waterford and even in the new Meath West three-seater.
There is, however, another dynamic developing which could also operate against a dramatic rise in support for SF and that is the rise of the Green Party. A surge for the Greens is the one clearly discernible shift in the electorate during this "phoney war" stage of election campaign. SF fishes in the same pool for some of the younger and/or anti-establishment votes and a Green surge narrows the space for Sinn Féin growth.