We won. Oh yes indeed, we did.

Richard has finally been elected after the Labour Party demanded a recount. Serve them right. He's done a lot of work in the locality over a long time and Ivana Bacik was a blow-in aimed, I suspect, at ensuring that the ULA did not get the seat. It backfired. FF's Mary Hanafin is declaring that "politics is in her blood" and bemoaning the fact that there was only 1 Dublin TD, no women, and only 18 so far overall. They've dropped from 77 deputies elected in 2007 to 71 in January 2011, to 18 now.

Which means that the ULA now has almost one third the seats of FF. A decade ago, who would have thought that could come to pass?

All 6 Greens lost their seats. They reckon they can come back. I wouldn't be so sure, myself, not after legitimising the fiasco economics played out by FF is the last few years. And SF have 14 seats.

But most importantly, we won five seats, with Richard Boyd-Barrett, Joe Higgins, Clare Daly, Joan Collins and Seamus Healy all winning seats. This means that there will be a strong, focussed and principled left wing opposition in the Dáil, and will ensure that what I think will be the inevitable slide to the right by SF will be checked. It will also be a thorn in the side of what will not doubt be a cosy alliance between FG and Labour, which is good.

So here it goes!