just wondering what people think would be the likely outcome in these new constituencies

dempsey, brady, english, mcentee,wallace, and the new td will be byrne hannigan or doherty
(imho) also as per the chronicle and the bookies
doherty a surprise said to be getting good response in brutons old area

Meath West.

1.Noel Dempsey
2.Damien English
3.Johnny Brady

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East: Something (unsubstantiated) tells me the Minister for Trees and Absenteeism is the most precarious of the 5 sitting Meath TDs with bright young thing Hannigan posing the threat. McEntee to top poll. Cant see Doherty coming from nowhere to steal in though so Wallace to survive. Byrne a poor fifth.

West: As you were: Dempsey, English, Brady in that order but last man closely pressed by Reilly who'll benefit from strongly differentiating himself from status quo on the M3 (by-pass towns immediately; reinvestigate contentious Tara section). Collins could close gap by similar approach but must do so pronto. Geraghty unlikely to make real impact. Higgins even less close.

collins in favour of the road and has publicly committed to this many times its now impossible to do U-turn. in any event most people in meath want it so i dont think he will gain votes by opposing it.

Guys,
Just a few questions on meath-West.
Jonny Brady & Joe reilly were the most affected by the split, where are they going to make up the votes?

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coole in westmeath a very strong FF area and brady expected to make up here
Reilly has a just less than half a quota from the meath west area of the bye-election this is a Fact ive seen the tally box returns
this is also the reason he is seen as the main threat to brady as logically you could claim he is ahead of all the other candidates (all novices except higgins) by the amount of votes he has actually recieved in the by-election.

Dempsey will take a seat in Meath West with a slightly reduced lead. FF insiders are admitting that The Quite Man Brady is looking very dodgy. FG has a quota and should take a seat despite their scatter gun approach with candidates. English is weaker than would be expected partially because he has not proved his worth and because he fell out with HQ.

Joe Reilly is the big news of this constituency. He is to the fore on the hospital issue and the rail line. He is also a councillor for the last 15 years with very good rep built up. Its estimated that he will take over 3,200 votes from Navan 2,500 votes in the Kells area, about 1,200 votes from the Trim area and about 700 out of the Coole area.

Joe is also transfer friendly in Navan and the Kells area. The national pundits know this and he is the accepted challenger for the seat by everyone from Browne to Whealan. Keep an eye on him.

In Meath East Wallace will take a seat. After that who knows. I hear that McEntee is extremely concerned that his running mate Doherty is too strong. Hannigan wont take the seat. He was the media’s poster boy up until the current whiff of dodgy dealings descended on him. Also Fitzgearld will take a lot of the old Labour vote which he won in the by election back off him. The last two seats will go to either McEntee, Doherty or Byrne.

your having a laugh here if he could get those votes in those areas he'd already be a TD.... and McEntee would be managing the county football team

There are alot of assumptions going on here.

1) I can't see Brady getting all the FF votes in the Coole area (ie Donie Cassidy's former voters) simply as he dosen't have a strong profile outside Kells. He is going to need Dempsey to maintain his 2002 vote for the transfers he will get, but I can't see Dempsey doing that, and I think Jonny may be in trouble.
2) Reily will do well but if the FF transfer pact holds up where else is he going to get the transfers from?

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Rugby is Life the Rest is mere Details