The Green Party and Sinn Féin will each consider putting up candidates in the Seanad elections in July. However, they would need a voting pact with other parties to secure election to the upper house.
This latest electoral move by the two parties will be on the agenda when their parliamentary parties meet for the first time tomorrow.
Under Seanad election rules, four members of the Oireachtas can nominate a candidate. In the general election, the Green Party increased its number of deputies from two to six and Sinn Féin from one to five.
Forty-three members of the Seanad are elected by members of the Oireachtas and county councillors to five vocational panels. In the 1999 local elections the Greens won eight seats and Sinn Féin 21.
With quotas in the various panels ranging from 80 to 140 votes, Sinn Féin and the Green Party would require a voting trade-off with other parties. While it is doubtful if the other parties would help to secure the election of a Sinn Féin senator, the Green Party might be wooed for a voting pact.
Sinn Féin sources said yesterday that, while nominating a Seanad candidate had been considered informally, no decision had been made. The matter will be discussed by deputies and party officials tomorrow.
The tradition among parties is to give nominations to candidates with a good chance of taking a Dáil seat in the subsequent general election.
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has two Seanad vacancies to fill between now and the upper house elections.
They have been caused by the resignation on health grounds of Mr Tom Fitzgerald and the election in Dublin Central of Dr Dermot Fitzpatrick, both of whom were among the Taoiseach's 11 nominees in 1997.
Mr Ahern is likely to fill the vacancies with candidates who have a good opportunity of securing seats in the forthcoming Seanad elections.
Fianna Fáil's increased Dáil strength, and an improved performance in the last local elections, will boost its Seanad vote, and the party is hoping for an increase in the 23 seats it won in the vocational panels the last time.
How Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats approach the Seanad elections will be influenced by whether the parties agree to go into coalition. Four PD senators were included in the Taoiseach's 11 nominations in 1997.
Labour won four Seanad seats the last time, following a disappointing general election performance.
Although the party lost seven seats in the local elections, despite the merger with Democratic Left, its current Dáil representation is 21, an increase of four on what it had in 1997.
Fine Gael, which achieved modest gains in the local elections, received a massive setback in the general election and faces an uphill struggle to equal the 16 seats it won in 1997 at a time when an unprecedented number of defeated deputies will be looking for nominations.
Oireachtas nominations close on June 14th. The deadline for the nominating bodies is June 7th.
