The big vote-getters:Brian Cowen and fellow Minister, Willie O'Dea, vied for top vote-getter in this election with the Laois-Offaly TD shading it narrowly. He won 19,102 first preferences compared with 19,082 for Mr O'Dea.
But first preferences on their own do not tell the whole story. Mr O'Dea's result amounted to 39 per cent of valid votes cast compared with Mr Cowen's 27 per cent. Likewise, Mr O'Dea secured 2.3 quotas compared with 1.6 for Mr Cowen. So Mr O'Dea's performance might be said to be the more impressive when all factors are taken into account. On vote management Mr Cowen's surplus divided almost equally in favour of his fellow Fianna Fáil candidates, Seán Fleming and John Moloney, both of whom were elected.
Almost 50 per cent of Mr O'Dea's surplus went to one of his Fianna Fáil running mates, Peter Power, and got him elected but the 14 per cent of the surplus which went to the third Fianna Fáil candidate, Noreen Ryan, was not enough to bring her in for a third seat. The highest vote in recent times was that of Jack Lynch in Cork City when he won 20,079 votes in the Fianna Fáil landslide of 1977. In other respects he was very close to Mr O'Dea with 39 per cent of the first preferences and 2.3 quotas.
The highest first preference vote in elections since independence was recorded by General Richard Mulcahy of Cumann na nGaedheal (predecessor of Fine Gael) in Dublin North in 1923. He secured 22,205 first preferences or 40 per cent of those cast. He had 3.6 quotas and got three other party colleagues elected in what was an eight-seater constituency. It was the first election since the ending of the civil war with many Republican candidates still on the run or in prison.
Éamon de Valera's best poll was in Clare in 1933 when he won 18,574 first preferences, 42 per cent of those cast. He had 2.5 quotas and helped get two other Fianna Fáil candidates elected to bring the party into government with its first overall majority.