Kenny will not be drawn on FF - but î Cu’v insists the signs are hopeful
Date Published: {J}
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was in Galway at the weekend, to pay tribute to the nearly 40 years of service in public life given by former TD Padraic McCormack.With 350 others they partied in the Salthill Hotel where speakers paid tribute to McCormack.
In celebratory mood, I buttonholed the Taoiseach to ask him if the Dublin by-election result where Fianna Fail finished second, meant that FF were on the way back, but he made it clear he wasn't going to speculate and that Fine Gael were having a night out, so business was out.
At the function McCormack produced a nice touch when he announced that he would match any profits from the dinner and the money would go towards two Galway charities, one involving carers and the other services to brain injury victims.
As the 20-hour Kenny day was coming to an end, I was intrigued to try to get Enda Kenny’s “take” on the Presidential and by-elections held a little over a week earlier, but Kenny said he had spent ten years involved in the rebuilding of Fine Gael and during that time there had been ups and downs - and weeks when people didn't want to know him - so he didn’t want to comment further.
Fianna Fail Deputy Leader Eamon Ó Cuív TD was not so reticent when I spoke to him, however, saying he believed their second place finish in Dublin in the by-election was significant. He felt it showed a stabilisation in the FF vote and the transfers showed that Fianna Fail were no longer considered “toxic” by the voters.
O’Cuiv said that in a lot of cases in the General Election Fianna Fail had the fifth runner in a four seater or the fourth runner in a three seater and that on a good day a lot of those losses could be reversed to the point where Fianna Fail could find themselves with at least a seat in every constituency in the country.
He dismissed the idea that the Fine Gael vote had in some way collapsed in Dublin - he felt the party had the wrong candidate in the Presidential Election in Gay Mitchell and they had one of the weakest candidates in the field in the by-election.
O’Cuiv said his personal feeling was that quite a lot of Fianna Fail people had voted for Sean Gallagher as the closest thing they could find to a Fianna Fail candidate and that in the case of the by-election the vote showed the underlying support that was still there for Fianna Fail, that it was no longer “toxic” to voters and that there was a tremendous underlying loyalty to the memory of the late Brian Lenihan.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.