Sinn Fein tastes first European victory as Irish government pounded

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, has won its first-ever seat in the European Parliament as the party of Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern suffered a serious mauling from voters, results showed Monday.

"There is no doubt about it, it was a bad election for us," Ahern told reporters as he arrived to open a new computer chip plant just outside Dublin.

"We lost this election. Sinn Fein won it."

With eight of 13 European seats decided and all the first preference votes counted under Ireland's proportional representation system, Sinn Fein had over 11 percent, up from six percent at the last EU polls in 1999.

In contrast, Ahern's Fianna Fail, the dominant party in the ruling national coalition, saw its share slump over nine percent, although it remains the biggest party with more than 29 percent.

Ahern promised a ministerial reshuffle, a call immediately backed by Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney of coalition junior partner the Progressive Democrat party.

"It is urgent, not only that we have the reshuffle, but in particular that we reshuffle our approach to some of the policy issues and that we make some decisions, tough decisions," she said.

Sinn Fein's first European success, which saw Mary Lou MacDonald elected in the Dublin constituency, could possibly be followed with a further seat in Ireland's North West constituency, initial counting showed.

Although Sinn Fein is the political arm of the IRA, British-ruled Northern Ireland's main nationalist paramilitary force, it also competes in elections in the Republic of Ireland, where it holds five seats in the national parliament.

It also found favour with voters north of the border, where candidate Bairbre de Brun captured one of the province's three EU seats, the party's first such representation in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein's triumph coincides with the retirement of its greatest foe, firebrand Protestant leader Ian Paisley, who has stepped down after 25 years in the European legislature.

However Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party still scored the most first choice votes in Northern Ireland's proportional representation poll.

The EU figures cap a miserable few days for Fianna Fail, which is expected to have lost around 80 local council places in a parallel vote on Friday which is also still being tallied.

Newspapers labelled the vote -- and the high turnout of around 60 percent -- a clear message to the government.

"The people have spoken in the highest poll in years and they had much to say," the Irish Times noted.

"They inflicted a damaging mid-term blow to Fianna Fail and its seven-year coalition with the Progressive Democrats.

"They changed the balance of power within the alternative government with the resurgence in Fine Gael. They gave Sinn Fein a significant breakthrough. And they probably laid the groundwork for national politics for the next decade."