Dublin proves to be a fickle place for politicians and political parties

Dublin is an electoral roulette wheel. Nowhere else in the country can a party’s fortunes vary so dramatically. A bonanza of seats in one election can be swept away in the next.

Fickle and disloyal to political parties, no other region in the country is close when it comes to changes on the electoral scoreboard. If a political party or alliance does not take Dublin, it won’t take the country.

In 2002 Fine Gael succeeded in winning a mere three seats in the capital, with only Richard Bruton, Olivia Mitchell and Gay Mitchell surviving a general rout for the party. It was that dismal performance in Dublin that served as the microcosm of the party's wider problems and cast doubt over its future. Gains of seven seats in each of the two successive elections show how far the pendulum has swung the other way in that decade.

Similarly, Fianna Fáil's electoral dominance of Irish politics under Bertie Ahern was built on a solid base in Dublin, where it became the dominant party for three elections.

The crisis showed how transient the loyalty was. Its support in Dublin collapsed completely at the last election, down from 39 per cent to 12.5 per cent.

It won 19 seats in 2002 but retained only a solitary seat in 2011 through the late Brian Lenihan in Dublin West. That seat was lost in the byelection following Lenihan's death later that year.

The findings of the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll show extraordinary shifts in the allegiance and mood of the capital since the 2011 election. There are two political groupings where this is most evident – the Labour Party and Independents.

Labour almost equalled Fine Gael with percentage support in Dublin in 2011 (29.3 per cent compared to Fine Gael’s 29.9 per cent) and actually won one more seats in the capital (18 opposed to 17).

While Fine Gael's support is down 13 points in Dublin in the Irish Times poll (it is now at 17 per cent), that drop is small in comparison with the 20-point drop for the Labour Party.

The other figure that stands out is the phenomenal showing for Independents and others in the capital. When the Greens at 2 per cent are grouped in with them, they make up the largest bloc by far of any political grouping – 34 per cent, or one in three voters.

Only seven of the TDs elected in Dublin in the last election were from outside the four big parties, but if these figures were repeated in an election, a doubling of that figure would be conceivable.

Another interesting finding is that the two social groups with the strongest support for Independents and others are the top two “white-collar” groups, reflecting a bias towards “Shane Ross- type” candidates.

In Dublin, that spike might also be registering support for the rebel Fine Gael TDs who make up the Reform Alliance.

For Labour, a 9 per cent support level in Dublin would see its seat tally tumble into low single figures. Fianna Fáil could not win a seat on 12 per cent but the party's transfer appeal in 2011 was non-existent.

When the poll results are applied to a general election scenario for the 40 constituencies in the Republic, it makes grim reading for Labour.

A combined assessment based on the poll findings, likely corrections for voting intentions (Sinn Féin gets a lot of support, 35 per cent, from unskilled workers and the unemployed, who do not vote in large numbers) and local political circumstances suggests that Labour would struggle to win more than 10 seats in a Dáil of 158 seats.

This writer’s interpretation of the nationwide picture is that Fine Gael would win 62 seats; Fianna Fáil 44; Labour nine; Sinn Féin 22 and Independents would get 21.

Looking at Dublin, it is certain that on these findings, Labour would lose at least one of its seats in each of the six constituencies where it won two in the last election.

In the new Dublin Bay North five-seater, the party has three sitting TDs and it could be that its only survivor would be one of its rebels, Tommy Broughan.

A similar situation might arise in Dublin North West where Róisín Shortall might survive.

If Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett continues as a Fine Gael TD in Dún Laoghaire, it will mean the constituency is a three-seater and party leader Eamon Gilmore's seat would be vulnerable in that situation.

How would the seats fall in Dublin, based on these findings? They show Sinn Féin as the best-supported party in the capital on 21 per cent (however, its seat tally will be suppressed because it would not get 21 per cent on an election day and it is not as transfer-friendly as others).

My calculations are: Fine Gael, 15; Fianna Fáil, eight; Labour, five; Sinn Féin, seven and independents, 10.

By any yardstick, that is an indecisive result, reflecting the huge degree of volatility in the capital.