Date Published: 13-Apr-2011

Events move on rapidly in politics. It seems like only yesterday the Fianna Fail West Galway selection convention was on and the ticket essentially selected itself – Eamon Ó Cuív, Frank Fahey and Mayor Michael Crowe.

On the night, two Dail seats seemed like they just might be possible, despite truly awful opinion polls nationally. One of the ‘hopefuls’ waiting in the wings was City Councillor Peter Keane, who had intimated his interest in possibly standing, but who had to ‘give way’ to the two sitting TDs and the Mayor on the basis that this was felt to be the best ticket that could be selected.

It’s very early days yet – and we still have to have the 2014 Local Elections before the next General Election if this Fine Gael-Labour Government runs its course – but the ‘field’ for Fianna Fail has now opened up in front of young city solicitor Peter Keane, with Eamon Ó Cuív the only survivor of the FF ticket.

Frank Fahey has bowed out of the Dail after thirty years of service in the constituency and then came last week’s announcement by Mayor Michael Crowe that he is to take a back seat from politics in the months to come as he devotes more time to business interests.

So, the opportunity has now opened up for Peter Keane – a man who has been making considerable headway on the city council and who is very prominently associated with the hugely important discussion on whether the City Plan is in fact legal, or may be subject to any number of challenges.

Peter Keane proved one of the surprise packets on an otherwise awful day for FF in the Local Elections in 2009 when he took a seat in the five-seater City West area (Knocknacarra, Salthill, Claddagh), where there were some pretty fancied other contenders still left in the race in the shape of Fine Gael’s John Mulholland and the Green Party’s Niall Ó Brolchain. They were still in the running when Peter Keane took his seat.

Keane got 869 first preferences and held on to take a seat that was a bit of a coup for Fianna Fail on a day when the party was being wiped out all over the place. Equally importantly, the party will have noted that he brought with him a decent personal vote, along with a series of personal contacts which proved very useful when it came to the all-important last minute campaigning by phone.

However, being a city councillor and translating it into a Dail seat where you have to get 5,000 votes to be even ‘in the mix’ is a very different contest, and the first thing Keane has to do is consolidate his local Galway City Council base, hold his city council seat, and then try to push on with whoever might be his running mate at the time of a General Election in five years time.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.