Political World
Major battle likely for final Dáil seat in Mayo
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
No election in November but make no mistake the election campaign is already underway.
The last Fine Gael selection convention was held on Monday night and, by tradition, it was in the home constituency of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
This week I’m going to continue my potted series on the four constituencies within the readership area of this newspaper. Last time it was Galway East. Now it is Mayo. I will run the figures on Galway West and Roscommon-Galway over the next few weeks.
The first thing to note about Mayo is that it won massively for Fine Gael in 2011. The party amassed an incredible 65% of the vote and won four seats out of five. That was unprecedented. I think we will probably see Halley’s Comet float through the skies again before we see that feat repeated in Irish politics.
The party has been more or less in the ascendancy over Fianna Fáil here since 1997 when two three-seat constituencies became one five-seater.
I was working in the RTÉ newsroom at the time and when Sean O’Rourke came to me I used the rather clunky metaphor that it was like squashing six Sumo wrestlers into a mini. You just couldn’t do it. In the end, Fine Gael got three out of five. The big news for Fianna Fail though was that Beverly Cooper Flynn made it to the Dáil – but the Flynn dynasty did not last.
In 2011 Kenny himself got an impressive 1.4 quotas even with tight vote discipline. It was a contrast to 2002 when Kenny was ahead of Jim Higgins by only a handful of votes and survived by the skin of his teeth. Michael Ring is the other big phenomenon here.
But there’s going to be big changes here this time around too and it’s not going to a happy hunting ground for Fine Gael.
Mayo has been reduced from a five seat to a four seat constituency to accommodate changes in other constituencies. That has mean that a big chunk of South Mayo, with a population of more than 10,000, has moved into Galway West. That includes Ballinrobe, Cong, Kilmaine, Neale and Shrule as well as Garrymore.
John O’Mahony (a former Mayo and Galway football manager) has migrated south with that vote and will stand in Galway West. Of the remainder it is Ring who will be most affected – he pulled upwards of 2,000 votes from this area the last time around.
Fine Gael is more or less guaranteed two seats Fianna Fáil will definitely retain its one seat. You can even put the names on them. Kenny will top the poll, Ring will be there or thereabouts after the First Count as will Dara Calleary of Fianna Fail.
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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