Labour feels the heat - and the pressure will only increase on their backbenchers

And then there were four ... the government with the biggest majority of all time has watched in recent weeks as the first trickles of defection began, and this week it faced its biggest test with the most difficult budget in the history of the State being divided into a two-day marathon.

The huge spending cuts and the tax increases have put major pressure on both Fine Gael and their Labour allies, but you have to bring it down to individual difficult constituencies like Galway West and Galway East to realise the kind of pressures the TDs find themselves under right now and which resulted in four Deputies - the latest, Patrick Nulty, who was only a wet week in the Dail - so far dropping the whip.

In Galway West for instance, the second Fine Gael seat is held by Sean Kyne, who is now the holder of what is officially the most marginal Dáil seat in the country. He has to look over his shoulder at both Independents and Sinn Fein, and may even have to keep an eye on a party colleague.

One of the greatest threats to surface in the constituency is Independent Catherine Connolly who got 4,766 first preferences, but lasted to the 13th count where she wound up with 9,095 votes in the race for the last seat, with Kyne coming in at 9,112. Meanwhile we all might keep a ‘weathered eye’ on his party running mate Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames who went out on the twelfth count with 7,020 votes, where gain the running was desperately tight between Healy-Eames, Kyne and the other successfully elected candidate, Brian Walsh TD.

Out in Connemara both Sean Kyne and Fianna Fáil front-runner Eamon Ó Cúiv will be very wary of the ambitions of Sinn Fein’s Trevor Ó Clochartaigh after he scored 3,808 first preferences and got to 4,683 before going out on the tenth count. Ó Clochartaigh was a long way from being in the hunt but Sinn Féin is very much in the growth business and their cries of “burn the bondholders”, thus making the budget easier, may find resonance among the voters that could yet spell trouble in Galway West.

Enough has been written about the “hard luck” of independent Councillor Catherine Connolly in West Galway and suffice to say that both Labour, in the shape of Derek Nolan TD, and Fine Gael, in the shape of Sean Kyne or Brian Walsh, could face a threat from her.The recent Red C Opinion Poll showed a national two per cent drop for the Labour party and such a fall off would be of concern to even a strong runner such as Derek Nolan, although the real threat could be in the background to someone like Sean Kyne as both Catherine Connolly and Sean Kyne take a hunk of their support from the same Connemara Electoral areas.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.