Tough-talking FF session is listed for city Ð and Hildegarde ups nomination campaign

The Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party arrives in Galway on Monday next for a two-day meeting prior to the re-opening of the Dail – with the indicators that it will be a tough-talking session as alarmed TDs discuss their situation.

Don’t be surprised if there is an opinion poll produced from somewhere in advance of the meeting .... but the TDs don’t need any pollsters to convince them that, between bailing out banks and health services strapped for cash, the Government are hardly ‘flavour of the month’ with the punters.

They meet in the Ardilaun House Hotel in private session, where guest speakers and ministers will be available for the kind of face-to-face discussions which TDs complain they rarely get when Leinster House is in session. Anxious TDs complain that ministers are often locked away for days ploughing through budget figures and difficulties with the banks.

The number one priority with ministers is sure to be reassuring backbenchers on improved communications with the TDs and Senators, and to try to steady their tattered nerves as newspapers warn them of possible electoral Armageddon.

Expect plenty of TDs moaning off the record about ‘poor communications’ and ‘not getting our message across to the voters’ – which is Fianna Fail ‘code’ for having a go at the Taoiseach and ministers.

But, at least at the Tuesday session, where councillors will be allowed to attend, those present will include three Galway City Councillors – the one bright spot on the FF Local Elections front was the party electing three in the city, Mayor Michael J. Crowe, his brother Councillor Ollie Crowe, and Councillor Peter Keane.

* * * * * * *Two sitting female TDs were lost to politics in the past week with the decisions by Olwyn Enright (FG) and Liz McManus (Labour) that they were not contesting the next General Election – but there are indications of no shortage of women for the FG ticket in Galway West next time out.

A certainty for the candidate list has to be Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames, who has been in the Senate since the 2007 General Election and was a member of Galway County Council from 2004 until she was elected a Senator.

Senator Healy-Eames has been working away in the constituency, has a full-time office based in the city, and stood in two General Elections.

Last time out in the 2007 General Election, she got over 3,900 first preferences, compared to 1,300 in 2002, and has all the look of one of those candidates who is eventually going to make it to the Dail by sheer dint of working at it in the constituency.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.