Dr. Adrian Kavanagh is based in the Geography Department of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Over the next few days and weeks I am going to briefly review each of the forty-three Dáil constituencies and  I will relate these to what the December 2010 Newstalk prediction survey says about the different constituencies and how these tally with the general trends observed in my more recent opinion poll analyses on www.politicalreform.ie  – these views will of course be influenced by party’s candidate selections with up-to-date news about these available from the Irish General Election Facts and Figures blog (http://geographyspecialinterestgroup.wordpress.com/)

Dublin West (4-seats): A constituency mainly focusing on the Greater Blanchardstown region, this was a three seat constituency in 2007 in which Socialist Party leader, Joe Higgins, lost his seat with Leo Varadkar winning back the seat that Fine Gael had lost in the 2002 election – Brian Lenihan FF and Joan Burton LB were also elected in this contest. Based on its population levels, Dublin West was by far the most under-represented constituency in 2007 with a population per TD ratio (30,967) that was 21.2% above the national average and an actual population level (92,900) that was higher than the 4-seat Cork North Central constituency (91,591). Dublin West was always likely to gain an extra seat in the boundary revisions associated with the 2007 Constituency Commission report and so it did, although this also required the addition of extra territory from neighbouring Dublin North, including the western part of Swords town, to balance the population numbers. The common wisdom, especially in light of his successes in the 2009 local and European elections, would be that Joe Higgins will claim this extra seat. But could the seat of Brian Lenihan – who has consistently topped the poll in Dublin West since he first was elected here in the 1996 by-election – be vulnerable? If national support trends are mirrored in Dublin West, then this would leave Fianna Fáil with les than a quota in this constituency – a vote that would also have to be shared between Lenihan and his young running mate, David McGuinness. If what would have seemed unthinkable in 2007 does pan out and Lenihan loses his seat here, then Labour’s Patrick Nulty would be the most likely candidate to benefit from this. But can Labour manage their vote adequately to ensure Nulty has enough first preference votes to put pressure on Fianna Fáil and the Lenihan seat?  

Socialist Party gain the extra seat – Lenihan FF, Varadkar FG, Burton LB, Higgins SP

Potential surprise package: If the Lenihan seat is lost, it might transpire that Fine Gael’s Kieran Dennison is the one to win this especially if a Fianna Fáil loss is caused by a significant loss of middle class support in the constituency.