Just in case – all the party machines ready for election battle in 24 hours

Date Published: {J}

Noel Grealish dropped a bombshell letter on the desk of Government Chief Whip Pat Carey TD on Wednesday of last week. Now an Independent TD, Grealish, a former member of the Progressive Democrats, was telling Carey that the Government could no longer rely on his support in Dáil votes.

In fact, now that the PDs no longer exist, for weeks there has not been an official agreement in existence relating to either the support of Grealish, or Mary Harney. I heard Harney did her own bit of negotiating. But, for Grealish, a new urgency had been injected into the situation by the flooding situation and a linked problem of lack of funding for restoration of damaged roads in County Galway.

I understand that flooding and roads were among the key Grealish demands in that private letter to Carey, but the re-negotiation of the deal on the two PDs votes was inevitable. I understand that Grealish also believed that maybe his support was being taken as a little too much for granted.

The doubt about one additional vote would have been another headache for the Chief Whip, the man charged with ‘doing the sums’ on an ongoing basis for the Government in the Dáil. But, maybe as an additional indication of his intent, Grealish upped the pressure in the final few days of last week in the Dáil, by missing a few lesser divisions in the House. That’s a strong indicator for someone who has been a very regular voter in the Dáil.

Grealish arriving with his letter will have made it ‘that sort of week’ for a wobbly Government – talks about an unpaid 12 days from the public sector saving maybe €900 million next year; the trade unions going public on it much too soon; public opinion pouring scorn on the idea; trade union leaders squirming on radio to explain more of the package they were allegedly offering; and the Government appearing to ‘lose the bottle’ in the face of public reaction and a heading like ‘Cowen caves in to public sector unions’ in the Irish Independent.

Things were on a knife-edge, so it’s hardly surprising to know that, even before news of Grealish’s letter looking for a ‘new deal’ for his vote, all of the parties had everything in place for an election – they’re all ready to roll with an election in 24 hours. You won’t, of course, get confirmation of that from Fianna Fáil!

Take Fine Gael out in Galway East, for instance. I understand it has a venue picked for its candidate selection convention in the four-seater constituency and all that remains to do is send those texts and mobile calls to get the hundreds of delegates together and launch the campaign.

The list of potential candidates is Paul Connaughton TD, Ulick Burke TD, Councillor Tom McHugh, Dr John Barton (the four-member FG team from 2007 that took two Dáil seats), and Senator Ciaran Cannon, a former member of the Progressive Democrats who joined FG some time ago and is very much seeking a place on the ticket.

A key issue here will be the directive from FG headquarters as to how many candidates should be chosen on the night by delegates. In my opinion, if the directive is four then they will be Connaughton, Burke, McHugh and Barton.

But, could it be ‘pick three’ with one to be added by HQ? In that sort of situation would HQ be choosing between Barton and Cannon, with Barton pointing to his 4,900 first preferences last time out, and Cannon with his 3,300 in 2007 as a PD runner.

One thing is sure, Fine Gael will be going to maximise its vote in the battle – for there is a belief, that if the backside falls out of the Fianna Fáil vote, as some polls would indicate, then maybe even FF long-time incumbents like Noel Treacy and Micheál Kitt might not be safe.

Something to keep the potential runners in line, however, may be the fact that, with Fine Gael likely to head-up the next Government, Enda Kenny having all those Senate nominations as Taoiseach, and a record number of councillors to elect senators, Kenny will have real fire-power on his side.

Of course I know Kenny is proposing to abolish the Seanad, but that requires a referendum and could take quite some time . . . and, in the meantime, there will have to be a new Seanad after any election.

For more see page 12 of this week’s Connacht Tribune.