FF braced for backlash

Date Published: 04-Jun-2009

WITH the battle lines now drawn, Fianna Fail is braced for severe losses on Galway County Council when the counting of votes concludes this weekend.

On a very good day, the party would be mightily relieved to lose just one of their ten seats – but if the backlash from the electorate is as severe as many of their candidates dread, they could lose up to four.

One thing certain is that two sitting FF councillors will bid farewell to County Hall with the party set to suffer losses in Tuam and Connemara.

The boundary revision has resulted in three sitting FF councillors now standing in Tuam where they currently hold two seats. Cllr. Mary Hoade comes in from the Oranmore Electoral Area and should win a seat but it will be at the expense of either Tuam’s Cllr. Tom Reilly or Cllr. Michael Connolly from Moylough.

It appears that this will be the main contest in the Tuam Electoral Area with Connolly likely to have the vital edge. Elsewhere Fine Gael will retain three with sitting councillors Tiernan Walsh and Tom
McHugh to be joined by Pete Roche with sitting councillor Michael Carey set to come up short.

The remaining two seats will be…