After weeks of tension, an uneasy peace reigned yesterday between Mr Proinsias De Rossa and MEP Ms Bernie Malone, as Labour's European election candidates agreed during their separate canvasses that they could both be elected to the European Parliament from the four-seat constituency.
Signing autographs for teenage girls in The Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght, party president Mr De Rossa was confident there were "two seats for the left in Dublin.
"If I maintain or increase my position in the polls slightly I will be elected for perhaps the third seat. Bernie will pick up transfers from a lot of different areas, so two seats are very realistic as far as I'm concerned".
There was only one reference to Mr de Rossa during Ms Malone's canvass at the Leopardstown Races. "How are you, Bernie", said a man with a Northern accent, "I just wanted to tell you, I'd vote for you before I'd vote for Frank Ross any day". When pressed later on her relationship with her running mate, Ms Malone insisted there was "no falling out". The state of their relationship was a "media fascination" and was not something the public was interested in, she said.
She told race-goers her chances of finishing in the first four were still good, but she would "be fighting for the last seat". While many of the people she met were from outside the constituency, each one was reminded to vote for their nearest Labour candidate.
There was a certain wistfulness in Ms Malone's tone when Ms Mary Banotti's daughter, Tanya, and a phalanx of her cousins arrived at the racecourse in matching Banotti campaign T-shirts. "You've no trouble with your candidate. You could relax and watch the racing", she told them, before asking Ms Banotti to recommend her for Fine Gael transfers.
When she met a French voter registered to vote for the European elections in Dublin, she went into overdrive, explaining in French that Labour was "comme le Parti Socialiste en France". Ms Malone was more cautious about the prospects of a Labour double this year than her party's president, conceding only that it was "possible" she and Mr De Rossa would both be elected. She said she "would have thought there was one safe Labour seat there. Optimistically speaking, the second one is still possible, but it will be a battle".
There was a quiet confidence in the De Rossa camp, as they canvassed Bank Holiday shoppers in Tallaght. Flanked by SIPTU vice-president Des Geraghty, the party president quietly handed out leaflets in between joking with children and having lengthy policy discussions with unhappy voters.
One young couple told Mr De Rossa they were wary of voting for him because they had been disappointed by Labour after voting for it in the 1992 general election. After the election, "everything went down the drain". Labour had "abandoned their traditional values" by going into coalition with Fianna Fail, they said. Mr De Rossa told them that "most people in the Labour Party" would probably admit that coalition with Fianna Fail "wasn't the best choice" in retrospect. After a 10-minute discussion about Labour's policies, the dynamics of coalition and the EU, the couple went away looking happier.
