Great television on weekend of political drama
Date Published: {J}
The images of newly elected TDs being held aloft in count centres all over the country made for extraordinary television over the weekend. And as The Week in Politics and The Final Count offered an assessment of events on Sunday night, it became apparent just how historic this election was, when images of new TDs, from Mick Wallace to Ming Flanagan to Michael Healy Rae flashed up one after the other.
It was historic, and it made for great television.
As the new TDs entered, the old were ushered out courtesy of an angry electorate, and the way they handled their exits also told a story. In Donegal, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan refused to concede defeat and was far from the count centre by the time she lost her seat – a woman who has never tasted defeat was not able to handle it.
But the best of all was the speech from John O'Donoghue in Kerry South – a former Minister whose expenses while as Minister for Arts were truly dramatic. “I hope the irony wouldn’t be lost that . . . I stand here in my evening of defeat in . . . this magnificent sports complex which I helped to build”.
It was a moment when hubris met self pity and he cut a pathetic figure. Humiliation and carnage were words used on The Week in Politics to describe what had happened Fianna Fáil. But it was Irish Times political editor Stephen Collins who showed how historic the election was when he pointed out to Seán O’Rourke on the Week in Politics that the party’s very future was in danger.
This once national institution is now the third biggest party in Ireland, with just a few seats more than Sinn Féin, and Collins pointed out that its small number of TDs could prepare for tough times as SF would be snapping at its heels.
FF leader Micheál Martin put a brave face on it, and pointed to new young TDs such as Charlie McConnell Óg in Donegal and Robert Troy in Longford/Westmeath but agreed it was a “difficult and disappointing result”.
He was off to rebuild the party and to find some potential women, as not one female FF candidate was returned to the Dáil.
For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.