(as opposed to the thread - Ireland South: who will you vote for?)

Here's my tuppence worth, give or take,

Brian Crowley, FF: 20% (down from 26% last time)
Sean Kelly, FG: 15% (today's IT poll has FG at 27% in Munster)
Kathy Sinnott: 14% (down from 18.5% last time)
Colm Burke, FG: 13%
Alan Kelly: 13% (todays poll has Lab at 12% in Munster)
Ned O Keeffe, FF: 10% (today's poll has FF at 20% in Munster but Crowley's vote is more personal than party)
Toireasa Ferris: 9% (in line with national figure)
Dan Boyle: 5%
Others: 1%
Total: 100%

- Ned O Keeffe's eventual elimination will elect Crowley.
- Burke's eventual elimination will elect Sean Kelly and the final seat is too close to call between Kathy Sinnott and Alan Kelly. Both will get a great transfer from Sinn Fein, Independents and Green Party and it all may well be decided by the size of Sean Kelly's surplus when he's elected- those papers will not be Sean Kelly no. 1s so it's harder to predict where they'll go.
- Incumbency, name recognition and 90,000 votes from 2004 say Sinnott has an edge for the last seat but if Kelly is ahead of her on the first count, it could mean that he will be more transfer friendly in later counts and will be in great shape to take the 3rd seat.....

One problem though: these sort of polls have been consistently wrong in the past in South. They predicted every time that John Cushnahan would lose his seat, and each time he won it.

I agree. Polls don't account for regional/local independents. The conclusions I'm drawing from national polls are limited enough here though, e.g. I'm giving FF a big bounce due to Crowley and Sinnott is getting more than the national Independent vote.

Taking your percentages as first preference votes.. I fail to understand why you don't predict Burke to be in the running for the final seat?

Surely FG are rather transfer friendly at the moment?

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S Kelly
Crowley
Sinnott (by a whisker over A Kelly)

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I don't count Burke in the running as I simply don't think he is well enough unknown outside of political circles. Sean Kelly will attract any FG leaning transfer ahead of him and that is why I tip him for the FG seat. Sean Kelly will outpoll Burke I think on the first count and that will set the tone for the rest of the day. In addition, Ferris from Kerry will probably give a more favourable transfer to Sean Kelly over Burke too (although neither will be the main beneficiary).

As big problem for Crowley this time is that he doesn't have the same open country he had last time in Kerry. He's quite geographically close to Kerry, it was there that most of the bad blood with Collins was in 2004 and frankly I think that he will be well down this time simply because of Ferris and Kelly. There is a sizeable enough republican tendency in Kerry which normally will vote FF if there is a suitable candidate in the field but with Ferris they have someone more local and whose republican background more than out matches that of Crowley.

75,000 votes were cast in Kerry and I'd say that Crowley got the vast bulk of those 26,000 or so cast for FF. I'd say he got the bones of 18,000 to 20,000 No.1 ones in Kerry and I would reckon that will be down by 10,000 this time as people go for someone local in the form of either Ferris or Kelly. I think Crowley won't break 100K or or 20% this time and Ned won't get even half that. O'Keeffe could get a barely respectable east Cork vote of 40,000. And with some of that not transferring Crowley could find himself struggling to stay ahead of the chasing pack.

I think Burke will be ahead of S. Kelly but that S. Kelly will overhaul him on transfers. With that bring both ahead of Crowley is another matter. If Crowley gets 19% he should be elected, but if it's truly a disaster and he gets under 17% then he won't make it. Just 2% more slippage could finish him.

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Interesting analysis. So, if we say 1 FG, probably 1 FF (with the Crowley factor saving the seat), where would you see the 3rd seat falling?

Crowley will be down more than 10k in Kerry. Sean Kelly will kill him in South and Toireasa Ferris in North. He's snookered.

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Ok, but keep in mind my prediction of a 6% drop in the Crowley vote - that equates to almost 30,000 votes from last time, i.e. he can lose a lot of votes and still keep his head above water.