Awwal 23, 1432 H/Feb 26, 2011, SPA -- As counting of votes on Saturday continued in Ireland's general election, opposition Fine Gael looked set to win with the Labour Party also making huge gains. But Fine Gael's Leo Varadker, who was elected in Dublin West, conceded that Fine Gael, which exit polls place at 36.1 per cent, may not win seats enough for an overall majority. He said the party would probably be looking to Labour as a coalition partner. "We are seeing a huge shift," dpa quoted former Fine Gael leader Garret FitzGerald as saying. "The last time anything happened on this scale was more than 90 years ago," he told the Irish Times daily newspaper. The first deputy to be elected to the Dail (Irish parliament) was Joan Burton, who topped the poll in Dublin West, where Fianna Fail's Finance Minister looked set to be one Fianna Fail member to retain his seat in the capital. The Labour Party, with 20.5 per cent according to exit polls, was on course for its best-ever general election result and was leading in Dublin. "The immediate future is very challenging and those who voted in such numbers for Labour have vested their hopes in the ballot they have cast so decisively," said former Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, the second candidate to be elected. Ruling Fianna Fail, set to gain 15.1 per cent, was facing its worst election result ever. The exit poll conducted for Ireland's national broadcaster RTE indicated it had only 8 per cent support in Dublin. "This would be a dramatically horrible result for the Fianna Fail party," said Frank Flannery, Fine Gael's deputy director of elections. Fianna Fail is set to have some high-profile casualties. Deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan was expected to struggle to hold on to her seat in Donegal in the north-west of the country. Junior Ministers Pat Carey, Sean Haughey and Conor Lenihan were set to lose their seats in Dublin. Conor Lenihan said there was "an avalanche against Fianna Fلil and while it did make mistakes it is paying the ultimate price." Also paying the price for its coalition partnership with Fianna Fail was the Green Party, expected to battle for the fourth seat in North Dublin, its best chance of winning a seat. A grouping of left-wing parties and candidates, United Left Alliance, was doing well with Joe Higgins, Clare Daly and Richard Boyd Barrett set to be elected. The independent Shane Ross may top the poll in Dublin South. Independents are expected to get 15.5 per cent of the vote. Unofficial tallies at the counts and the available results broadly bore out the results of RTE's exit poll, predicting that Fine Gael would lead the next government with a gain of at least 72 seats. That would mean party leader Enda Kenny replacing current Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who resigned as leader of Fianna Fail at the end of January following critisism of his handling of the country's current financial crisis. Fine Gael's election manager Phil Hogan has not yet conceded that the party will not get an overall majority when the final results are in. There is a margin of error of 2.5 per cent in the RTE exit poll, but results are usually very close to the mark. Nationalist Sinn Fein support is placed at 10.1 per cent, a record for the party. Its President Gerry Adams is set to gain a seat south of the border with Northern Ireland in Louth in the country's north-east for the first time ever. Final official results are expected by late Saturday or even Sunday.
