FF excludes Galway from its Dáil ticket

Grassroots Fianna Fáil members across a huge chunk of the county are furious that the party have decided not to run a candidate in their end of the Roscommon-Galway constituency in the forthcoming general election.

Instead the party – as they did in the 2016 general election – have opted to run two Roscommon candidates despite the fact that the Galway part of the constituency has been enlarged significantly since four years ago.

There had been high hopes that Fianna Fail would have selected Moylough’s Cllr Michael Connolly to join sitting TD Eugene Murphy from Tulsk on the ticket but instead have gone for Roscommon councillor Orla Leyden, daughter of Senator Terry Leyden, to be their team.

On the face of it, the Murphy-Leyden ticket would seem an odds-on combination for Fianna Fail to retain the third seat in the constituency where outgoing independent TDs Denis Naughten and Michael Fitzmaurice are almost certainties to be returned.

But that is of little comfort to the grassroots Fianna Fáil members in the Galway part of the constituency, which stretches from Ballinasloe across to Dunmore and taking in the likes of Moylough, Mountbellew, Ballygar, Williamstown and Glenamaddy.

It is estimated that there are around 26,000 votes on the Galway side of the constituency and staunch Fianna Fáil members are angry that Cllr Connolly, who received a creditable 2,200 first preference votes in last May’s local elections, was not considered.

FF party leader Micheal Martin was due to embark on a tour of the constituency on Tuesday but this was cancelled in view of the fact that the ticket has now been filled.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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