The Socialist Party candidate Joe Higgins looks like he may spring a major surprise by taking the third seat in the European Parliament elections in Dublin.
According to authoritative figures acquired by the parties ahead of the announcement of the first count after 9pm, the first two positions will be filled by sitting MEP¿s Fine Gael¿s Gay Mitchell and the Labour Party¿s Proinsias de Rossa, both of whom were widely predicted to retain their seats.
However, the other two MEPs vying for the last seat in the constituency (which has been reduced from four seats to three for this election) Fianna Fáil¿s Eoin Ryan and Sinn Fein¿s Mary Lou McDonald may lose out to Mr Higgins, a former TD for Dublin West.
According to the date, Mr Mitchell and Mr de Rossa will be neck-and-neck after first preferences with 95,000 votes each, some 6,000 short of the expected quota of 101,000.
Mr Ryan will come in third with 55,000 votes, some 5,00 ahead of Mr Higgins, on 50,000 votes; and 7,000 ahead of Ms McDonald on 48,000.
If that scenario is correct, Mr Ryan and Ms McDonald¿s chances of retaining their seats will be very slim. If she is behind Mr Higgins, she will have little chance of making up the shortfall, as the Socialist Party candidate is expected to benefit more from transfers.
Any hope that Mr Ryan has of being elected will be contingent on Mr Higgins being eliminated before Ms McDonald. He will benefit from transfers from his running mate, Dublin Lord Mayo Eibhlin Byrne, who has 18,000 votes and a certain percentage from the Greens' Deirdre de Burca.
But Ms McDonald¿s votes, if she is eliminated, will trend very heavily towards Mr Higgins at a ratio of five to one at least as will those of Patricia McKenna, the former Green MEP who is running as an independent.
Speaking a short while ago in the count centre at the RDS, Mr Ryan said: ¿I think that I will do better if Joe Higgins goes out first because his transfers will be distributed more. I would like Mary Lou go ahead of Joe Higgins.
¿I am in there with a chance, there¿s no question about that. It¿s going to be very dependent on transfers. A lot of people said they would transfer to me,¿ he said.
He said he thought he had recovered a lot of lost ground on the other candidates in the last week of the campaign. Mr Higgins, who has also arrived at the RDS, is making no comment until he receives reliable information.
The full result for this constituency, encompassing all four Dublin local authority areas, will be announced at 9pm.
The other candidates are Caroline Simons from Libertas and Emmanuel Sweeney, an independent candidate.
