Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin is strongly tipped to win a Dáil seat in the Taoiseach's Dublin Central constituency in the next general election, after the party said yesterday she would seek a nomination to stand.
The party will choose its candidate on December 1st. While Cllr Nicky Kehoe came very close to taking a seat in 2002, it is considered almost certain that Dublin MEP Ms McDonald will be the nominated candidate.
The news yesterday ended speculation that has continued since her election to the European Parliament last year.
Ms McDonald is seen as representing an important strand of the new image Sinn Féin wants to present to voters in the Republic. She is young, female, articulate, from a middle-class background and has no history of involvement in the "armed struggle".
Cllr Kehoe was 79 votes short of the last candidate elected in the four-seat constituency, Fianna Fáil's Dermot Fitzpatrick, in 2002. Ms McDonald's high national profile and ability as a candidate mean she would be expected to win one of the four seats, unless there is an unexpected fall in Sinn Féin support before the next general election.
Apart from the two Fianna Fáil TDs, the others in the constituency are Joe Costello (Labour) and Tony Gregory (Independent).
If Ms McDonald is elected to the Dáil, she can choose to remain as both an MEP and a TD until the next European Parliament election, due in 2009.
Should she choose to resign her European Parliament seat she will be replaced. The selection convention takes place on December 1st at 8pm in the Aughrim Street Parish Centre in Stoneybatter.