European earthquake

A comforting four seats out of 11 for Fine Gael in Friday's European Parliament elections. Seats in all three constituencies for both Sinn Féin and a resurgent Fianna Fáil (including in Dublin where the latter currently has no Dáil seats). Labour wiped out. The Socialist Party wiped out. The Greens in contention for two seats. A veteran Independent probably losing her seat to a maverick.

Predicting the final seats in a PR election from today's Irish Times /Ipsos MRBI poll is a dangerous business, however irresistible. Sample sizes and the vagaries of transfers of preferences mean that a health warning is certainly necessary. And there are still three days of campaigning to go. But, one way or another, whatever happens in the last seats, Thursday's vote is going to be a game changer for Ireland's political landscape.

In Dublin, with seats almost certainly going to Brian Hayes of Fine Gael – close to a full quota on the first count – and to Lynn Boylan of Sinn Féin, the third seat is likely to go either to Mary Fitzpatrick of Fianna Fáil or Eamon Ryan of the Greens. The poll suggests the result will be determined by the division of Emer Costello’s (Labour) second preferences – a predicted even split would just allow Fitzpatrick snatch the seat.

In the Midlands-North West, the two frontrunners, Mairead McGuinness (Fine Gael) and Matt Carthy (Sinn Féin), can be confident of taking the first two of the four seats. That will leave Fianna Fáil’s Pat the Cope Gallagher and Independents Luke Ming Flanagan, and Marian Harkin fighting for the two remaining seats – on the basis, however, of a rough division of second preferences expressed in the poll, Harkin appears set to lose her seat.

The dizzying, quota-topping performance of Brian Crowley (Fianna Fáil) in South, with close to a third of the votes, will not provide his party with a second seat although an efficient vote management strategy might well have done so. He will be joined in Europe by Liadh Ní Riada of Sinn Féin, with Fine Gael’s combined 28 per cent ensuring that at least one of the party’s candidates will be elected, almost certainly Sean Kelly, its leader in the field. The final seat also appears likely to go to Fine Gael’s Deirdre Clune by a whisker, as Phil Prendergast’s (Labour) second preferences appear insufficient to put the Greens’ Grace O’Sullivan over the line. If so it’s a remarkable vote management coup for Fine Gael whose 28 per cent could secure it two seats, while Fianna Fáil’s 33 per cent gets it only one.

Party managers will also note another significant challenge in the breakdown manifest in the poll in new more unpredictable transfer patterns as voters in the huge constituencies spread their favours around. Party loyalty is not what it used to be.