Political World
Crunching those numbers across Galway and Mayo
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Last week I touched on the prospects of independents in the counties where the Connacht Tribune spreads its tentacles.
This week I’ll have a more general look at the state of play and look at who looks vulnerable and who might cause upsets in the vastly revised constituencies.
We’ll start with Galway West which has remained as a five-seater and taken in a bit of South Mayo, which isn’t great for either Galway West or South Mayo.
There are two outgoing Fine Gael TDs, and one each from Fianna Fáil, Labour and Independents.
Of those, you can take it Éamon Ó Cuív will retain his seat and there is a guaranteed Fine Gael seat – although who will get it is a complicated question.
After that, I would say that Noel Grealish should be returned. He’s not going to join any alliance and his own bailiwick around Carnmore survived intact in the constituency changes.
So that’s three. What about the other two?
Well I think the two seats that will be in play are the Labour seat and the second Fine Gael seat. Derek Nolan did very well in 2011; he comfortably made the transition from councillor to TD and has acquired a strong national profile.
But unless Labour recovers remarkably in 2015, he is in trouble – irrespective of what miracles he can perform local and nationally. As we have found out before when a Spring Tide becomes a neap tide, you are going to be washed out no matter what.
And that brings Catherine Connolly into the reckoning. She has built up a very solid reputation as an independent councillor since leaving Labour and will pull a strong vote in the city and some in Connemara (she has very good Irish which gives her a profile sa Ghaeltacht.
So will Sinn Féin and its standard-bearer in the constituency in Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, a former Independent and Labour Party member. He’s very articulate and fronts for the party in a lot of its Irish-language endeavours and also on the Diaspora. His cause will be helped by the election of three Sinn Féin councillors in the city, giving the party a springboard for a biddable Dáil seat.
The problem faced by Ó Clochartaigh is his location. There are a lot of candidates in Connemara and it will be hard for him to draw a huge amount of votes from Sinn Féin natural target there, Fianna Fáil, especially as Dev Óg really controls the roost.
If Mairéad Farrell is the city candidate, she could perform strongly too but not enough to overtake her running mate.
And then there is Fine Gael. The party could have as many as four candidates in the election – Senator Hildegarde Naughton will run, in addition to its sitting Deputies Sean Kyne and Brian Walsh.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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