O Brolchain gets a huge ÔbreakÕ Ð but faces near impossible battle for a seat

Green Party former Mayor of Galway Niall O Brolchain got the political break of his life this week, when he won a by-election for a seat in the Senate – with the support of TDs and Senators from Fianna Fail, The Green Party, and Independents (including former PDs Mary Harney and Noel Grealish).

Just six months ago, O Brolchain’s political dreams lay in ashes – the man once openly speculated on as a possible TD for Galway West, had lost in the most basic of political tests, failing to hold his local authority seat on Galway City Council.

That was in the June Local Elections and the vast majority thought that it would spell the end of O Brolchain’s career. With 706 first preferences in the five-seater West Ward (Claddagh, Knocknacarra, Salthill), he had just half a quota. Most importantly, he had lost his local political base – a City Council seat he held for five years.

O Brolchain became a full-time official with the Green Party in Leinster House – but his days as a possible Dail contender seemed over. After all, he had polled over 3,000 first preferences in the General Election of 2007, and 2,200 in the 2002 General Election. In 2007 he had been mentioned as a possible contender for one of the final Dail seats in the TG4 opinion poll done in Galway West in the weeks before the election.

His hopes of a Dail career were smashed. But fate sometimes takes a hand – the Green Party wanted to renegotiate the Programme for Government with Fianna Fail a few weeks ago. They were driving a hard bargain that included a reversal of policy on teaching jobs – with 500 teachers to be appointed under their demands.

Part of the package was that they also wanted one of the vacant Senatorships in the by-election in which voting was confined to TDs and Senators.

The word is that any number of people in The Green Party wanted that nomination and that O Brolchain had to work very hard indeed internally in the party to ‘get the nod.’ It was largely due to the ordinary rank-and-file that he did get the nomination. His actual election was assured with FF, Green and Independent support and O Brolchain took the Labour seat left vacant by the election of Senator Alan Kelly as an MEP.

But now the question is whether O Brolchain can turn this ‘break’ into something more than a relatively short term in the Senate (who knows how short?), and free car parking for life in the grounds of Leinster House? It is an almost impossible battle.

He maintains that, though the Green Party did dismally at the Local Elections nationally that, locally, in Galway West, the branch structures are still healthy, though I still maintain his best chance may only come when Labour’s Michael D. Higgins TD eventually retires.

“Of course, I will try to build it up to a Dail seat. That is why I stood at two General Elections. Of course it’s not going to be easy, but that is what I intend to try to do,” said O Brolchain.

Of course, in the over-heated atmosphere of Galway West where Fianna Fail hold two Dail seats (Eamon O Cuiv and Frank Fahey), Fine Gael one (Padraic McCormack), Labour one (Michael D. Higgins, and there is one Independent Noel Grealish (former PD), the Senate win for O Brolchain will not go down too well.

One of those pushing hardest for a Dail seat is Fianna Fail’s Councillor Michael John Crowe, who knows that at a time when FF are unpopular, his task will be all the more difficult. Speculation still continues that the seat that must be his target is that of Frank Fahey – but Fahey is a long time on the road in this game and personalising the battle must surely make the Fahey camp followers even more determined and aware of the Crowe threat.

Given that Councillor Michael John Crowe got just under 5,000 votes in the General Election in 2007 and got over 1,000 first preferences in retaining his Galway City Council seat in the June Local Elections, the thought of someone like O Brolchain, who lost his City Council seat, getting a seat in the Senate has gone down like a lead balloon in the Crowe camp.

Michael John’s brother, Councillor Ollie Crowe, went on the attack a few weeks ago when I first broke the story about O Brolchain going into the Senate. Yes, it is ‘undemocratic’ ...... but I wonder if Bertie Ahern had given one of his ‘Taoiseach’s Eleven” Senate seats to Michael John Crowe, would that have been undemocratic too? However, it would be fair to point out that Michael John Crowe would have deserved one of ‘Bertie’s Eleven’ than some of the nominees .... for instance, Eoghan Harris.

The Crowes will know that sometimes the rules in politics work like that. If Fianna Fail hadn’t been wishing to appease The Greens in the regnegotiation of the programme for government and the Senate seat had been in the gift of FF, would it have been undemocratic if the vacancy was given to Michael John Crowe?

Is it undemocratic that Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the former PDs (now Independents) have formed an alliance in Galway City to share out the City Mayoralty between them – and completely shut out the five Labour City Councillors who between them got one third of the seats in the city chamber and were the single biggest winners in the Local Elections in Galway City?

For more read page 14 of this week's Connacht Tribune.