Voters go to the polls on Friday to elect eleven MEPs to represent Ireland in Strasbourg. The loss of one seat, due to the accession of new member states, has resulted in the reconfiguration of the constituencies. There are now three constituencies, Dublin, Midlands/North West and South with three seats in Dublin and four in each of the other two.

In 2009 Fine Gael won four seats with 29.1% of the vote. Fianna Fáil and Labour each won three seats, Fianna Fáil with 24.1% and Labour with 13.9%. The remaining two seats went to Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party who got 12.4% in Dublin while Marion Harkin retained her seat in North-West with 17.1% of the vote.

Dublin

The final opinion polls of the campaign suggest that two of the three seats are already accounted for with Lyn Boylan of Sinn Féin and Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes on 23% and 22% respectively. The real battle is for the third seat and no less than six candidates claim to still be in with a chance.

With the exception of Mary Fitzpatrick of Fianna Fáil the other five can be categorised as being representative of the left. Nessa Childers, Eamon Ryan, Emer Costello, Paul Murphy and Bríd Smith have a combined 40% in the polls.

Childers, who won a seat for Labour in Leinster in 2009,was the surprise front runner in the early polls but now appears to have fallen back into the pack as the weekend polls has her support ranging from 8% to 13%. The latter figure would have her firmly in contention especially as she is leading the race in the fight for transfers, but the lower figure would leave her with a mountain to climb.

There are two other outgoing MEPs in the field although neither was actually elected in 2009 rather replacing two who stood down. Emer Costello is Labour’s only hope of winning a seat in the three constituencies and her success or failure will have a huge bearing on the fate of her party leader Eamon Gilmore. Her obvious problem is that she is the flag bearer for the party that has borne the brunt of the wrath over charges and cuts and although she is nominally from the left she would not want to be relying on sufficient transfer support from those who would see themselves as genuinely left.

Although she is running second in transfer preference, it is likely that most of those are from Brian Hayes who when elected will have little to transfer. Her other hope lies in Mary Fitzpatrick being eliminated before her and because of the Dublin Central connection receiving a disproportionate share of her vote, although whether Fianna Fáil supporters, under pressure in Dublin, would deliver on that is another matter.

Mary Fitzpatrick is the standard bearer for Fianna Fáil and has the onerous task of reviving the party’s fortunes in the city. While she will get sympathy for her treatment at the hands of the 'Drumcondra Mafia' it will not offset the anger that still exists for her party, particularly in the capital and her inability to attract enough transfers to keep her in contention will be the likely deciding factor.

Paul Murphy replaced Joe Higgins in Europe and rather oddly has never had his name on the ballot paper before at any level. He has a voting pact with Brid Smith of People before Profit and between them they have around 13% and they would expect that whoever is eliminated first will transfer in sufficient numbers to the other to keep them in the race.

However with so many other options to choose it is likely that both will be eliminated early and that would be good news for Eamon Ryan, leader of the Green Party and Nessa Childers who I expect to see battle it out for the final seat with their fate determined by Fitzpatrick and Costello.

Midlands/North-West

As with Dublin there is likely to be a seat for Fine Gael and Sinn Fein as outgoing MEP Mairead McGuinness is well ahead of the party’s other MEP Jim Higgins and they don’t have sufficient combined support for two seats. Matt Carthy of Sinn Féin is polling in the high teens and it is inconceivable that if his party is at the level the polls indicate, he will not win a seat in a constituency containing half of the parties 14 TDs.

The battle for the other two seats will be between two Independents and one of the two Fianna Fáil candidates. Marian Harkin has been successful in her last two European elections and will not relinquish her seat readily. She saw off the challenge of Declan Ganley in 2009 and now faces a battle with the controversial Roscommon TD Luke 'Ming' Flanagan.

The weekend polls has Flanagan ahead by a marginal 2% points but it would be foolish to ignore the personal vote that Harkin has accumulated since she was elected to the Dáil in 2002 for Sligo-Leitrim and consolidated by her subsequent ten years in Strasbourg.

Flanagan has an advantage in that he has been prominent in the whistle-blowers controversy and also in the fight against water charges but like Harkin will be dependent on transfers to get across the line. Given that neither Sinn Féin nor Fianna Fáil will have anything of consequence to transfer it is probable that the outcome will be decided by the votes of Jim Higgins, Ronan Mullen and Lorraine Higgins of the Labour Party. In those circumstances it is likely that Harkin will pull ahead of Flanagan and retain her seat.

However should that happen then all is not lost for Flanagan as it is possible that he could take the final seat because Fianna Fáil mismanage their vote. While MEP Pat 'the Cope' Gallagher and Senator Thomas Byrne have almost a quota between them which should result in one of them winning a seat it is not a foregone conclusion.

Their vote is too evenly split and should Flanagan end up with around 16% it would require a very tight transfer between the two Fianna Fáil men to catch him. The task for Fianna Fáil is compounded by the fact that Gallagher is from Donegal while Byrne is from Meath and the Irish electorate, irrespective of party, have a marked reluctance to transfer support across county boundaries never mind provincial ones.

Should Gallagher prevail it will likely be because of transfers from other Connaught-Ulster candidates as much as from his running mate.

South

The one absolute certainty across all three constituencies is that Brian Crowley will get the largest individual vote in the country and win a seat for Fianna Fáil with at least half a quota to spare.

He is going to win that seat for the fifth successive time and his surplus will determine who wins the final seat. Although he is listed as Fianna Fáil he has built up such a massive personal support that he far transcends the current electoral ratings for his party. His running mate Kieran Hartley, selected for his anti-pylon stance, has barely registered in the polls and Crowley’s surplus will bring little joy to him. There will be no repeat of the Bertie Ahern- Cyprian Brady sensation of 2007 here.

Liadh Ní Riada, daughter of the late iconic composer Seán Ó Riada, will win a seat for Sinn Féin to give them a clean sweep across the three constituencies which would be a remarkable feat as all three candidates were virtually unknown outside of party circles. They also have the added bonus of not risking the loss of a Dáil seat at a by-election should they have selected any of their sitting TDs to run.

It looks almost certain that despite having a combined opinion poll rating in the low 30’s Fine Gael look odds on to win two seats. This has largely come about because unlike the other two constituencies there are no high profile Non Party candidates in the field. Indeed at fair portion of that block of votes has probably ended up with Crowley.

Sean Kelly will retain his seat while the second Fine Gael seat will be a dogfight between Deidre Clune, former TD, and Wicklow TD Simon Harris. Yet again transfers will determine the outcome and as the bulk of those will come from the adopted Cork man Crowley, Cork woman Clune should get the majority of those. Harris is at a disadvantage as his Leinster base represents only a quarter of the constituency and has no readily available pool of transfers.

It was expected that anti-austerity campaigner and Irish Examiner journalist Diarmuid O’Flynn would capture a significant slice of the anti-government vote but that looks unlikely as he is at low single figures and he is running neck and neck with Grace O’Sullivan the Green Party candidate. Buy realistically their joint starting position is too low and they will not be involved in the final reckoning.

Outgoing MEP Phil Prendergast saw a spurt of support after she railed against her party leader Eamon Gilmore but that has dissipated as the campaign enters the final few days and there will be no Labour MEP in South.

Summary

By my analysis Fine Gael will win four seats, while Sinn Féin will capture a historic three seats. Fianna Fáil has one definite seat and is well placed to win a second in Midlands/North-West. There looks certain to be two Independents/smaller parties elected while they have a chance of a third seat if Fianna Fáil mess up in the North West.