I am being forced into voting for Sinn Fein now because Labour have abandoned the working class," said Vivian Nicol, 57, who works at Dublin airport. Andrews is helping his efforts to resist eviction from his terraced house built for dock workers after the expansion of the nearby "Silicon Docks" office district inflated rents.

"I'd still have reservations. I still think it's a bit early for Sinn Fein (after the Northern Ireland violence)... But I feel as if I've no one else to vote for," said Nicol.

But Sinn Fein weakened last year as its voice of protest carried less weight among some voters in the face of an economy that expanded by around 7 percent and falling unemployment.

Some rivals accuse the party of inheriting a tight-knit culture of secrecyand lack of respect for the law from when it was banned in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s because of its ties to the IRA.

In the past year, revelations about the IRA's failure to go to the police with allegations of sex assaults by a member of the group in the 1990s and Adams' defence of the alleged former chief of staff of the IRA after a tax evasion conviction have done little to dispel such perceptions.

Dismissing the possibility of serving in a coalition with Sinn Fein, the leader of the biggest opposition party Fianna Fail, Michael Martin, last month described it as operating "like a mafia organisation".

Sinn Fein says it has been the subject of a steady flow of politically motivated attacks in the media