Posters up

The writ has been moved, the order for polling has been signed and now its time to get visual. Wexford’s bye election picked up a gear as candidates posters (well some of them) were hung around a lamp post on a wet Thursday night.

Wexford town has already posters for Labour’s George Lawlor and Fine Gael’s Veronica Murphy. However the well oiled political machine better know as Fianna Fail seem to be still in neutral in this part of the constituency. It seems that Fianna Fail Cumann members in the south of the county may well be holding firm in their threat not to canvas as a result of the ongoing political row within Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail , Labour and Sinn Fein put up and remove their own posters. Fine Gael are resourced to have their own erected and removed professionally, yes it appears there is someone who earns his crust hanging posters from a lamp post. So we await the Fianna Fail posters any day soon.

The real talking point is what has happened to the independent candidates for the independent seat that is up for grabs? We have 8 Non Party councillors yet none seem to be interested in running. In the 2016 we had 5 independents and in 2011 we had 4. Has the air in Wexford run out of independent support? The only independent in the race is a Kilkenny based extreme right winger. I can’t see her getting more than a handful of votes.  There were suggestions that one of Wallaces family or newly elected councillor Pat Barden may run but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.

The listed candidates are Malcom Byrne FF, Jim Codd  Aontú, Karin Dubsky Green Party, George Lawlor Labour, Veronica Murphy Fine Gael,  Johnny Mythen SF and Meliosa O’Neill IFP. Or lets look on it from the point of Geography, 2 candidates from Wexford and Gorey and one from Enniscorthy and New Ross with a foreigner from Kilkenny.  

Few issues have emerged other than the future of Rosslare, the funding for mental health services and the prospect for a university based in the south east. Important issues which have featured locally in the last 5 years. Brexit has disappeared off the agenda.

With little media focus on the bye election so far there is every likelihood that the turn out will be low. That’s not to say that there is something going on, there is.

Karin Dubsky will be expected to pick up on the green surge. Aontú’s Jim Codd may well continue to chip away at Sinn Fein’s vote.  FF voters disillusioned with the perception that Lisa McDonald was mistreated may also give him the nod. Not enough to put him into serious contention but certainly enough to put him ahead of Dubsky. Then that leaves Sinn Fein hoping to be ahead of Dubsky and Codd and that they may benefit from transfers.  That brings us to Veronica Murphy. She’ll be looking for a good turn out in New Ross which is traditionally a strong Fianna Fail area . and she may find transfers harder to pick up than she thinks.

Which leaves George Lawlor and Malcolm Byrne. It will all depend on how their respective areas may poll. Gorey is a district from where many workers often commute to work, the long drive home in the dark on Black Friday with the build up to the Toy Show may just keep some voters at home especially if the weather is cold or wet in the evening. Gorey’s population is younger than Wexford’s. Leaving the kids at home to vote on a big night may be a huge ask in the run in to Christmas. I’m certain that nobody will vote after 9pm.

This election may well spring a surprise when people expect it least because  at a general election we elect a government, at a bye election we elect a TD. The winner may well come from Wexford District.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

There’s no row like a family row. And there’s no party that does rows better than FF. Right now it seems that there’ll be as much interest in who’s not on the ballot paper for FF as opposed to who they actually run. The reason why is that it will give a good insight as to how the FF ticket may work when the county goes to the polls in 2020.

Malcolm Byrne as Euro candidate seems to have the inside track with Michéal Martin. However Malcolm was not selected by FF cumann members to run. Lisa McDonald had that honour. That was until 2 weeks ago when Malcolm Byrne was added to the general election ticket. To make matters worse for Ms McDonald, Michael Sheehan from New Ross was added also by Arás De Valera. The upshot of it all is a right donnybrook, the likes of which the county hasn’t seen in years with finger pointing and the blame game in all directions.

To be fair to the FF candidates involved, there is a view that the party may have been better to have selected its Bye Election candidate and seen how that campaign panned out before they finalised their General Election ticket. It is clear that for FF the bye election doesn’t rate as well as the General Election. Needless to say the selection debacle will register in the minds of some voters and may damage the parties prospects of victory. The bye election candidate will surely be one of McDonald, Byrne or Sheehan. Whoever it will be is in an invidious position not of their own making.

Elsewhere another unusual candidate has been selected who while not expected to poll well will certainly bring her unique vigour  to the campaign. Melisssa O’Neill, is a former Sinn Fein councillor in Kilkenny. She will run on behalf of the Irish Freedom Party, a right wing pro Brexit party that is strongly connected to Nigel Farage. We may yet see Nigel canvas Gimont on a wet afternoon in November, that’s of course if the boats and planes are still flying post Brexit. Its not likely that the Freedom Party will poll more than 3 figures however the issues they campaign on, anti-refugee, anti vaccination may well feature during the campaign.

Labour will select George Lawlor on October 11^th while the word in SF is that the lads in Belfast will soon decide who’ll fly their flag.  We may well be in for another surprise when it comes to Sinn Fein.  However SF is known for its discipline and its unlikely that we’ll hear public recriminations that make headlines in the local papers. But there’s no row like a family row, but will it win enough votes to win a seat? Has that ploy ever worked before?

By the time the votes are cast and we all snuggle down to watch the Toy Show we’ll be a lot wiser as to the lie of the land. We go to the polls on Friday, November 29^th.

The slow march to the ballot box

Sometimes you need to pinch yourself to remember there is actually a bye-election campaign going on! Or maybe it’s the start of the general election campaign? With less than 10 days to go before the writ can be moved there’s little momentum towards any poll.

Little has happened outwardly in the last 3 weeks to shake things up. There is the suggestion that Mick Wallace’s son, Fionn Wallace may be selected as the Independents for Change candidate. Fionn was recently in the headlines after he secured a position as Parliamentary Assistant to Dublin MEP Claire Daly in Brussels. On the ground in Wexford the view is that unlike a bye-election where a family member runs as a result of a bereavement this time the sympathy vote doesn’t exist. Fionn, if he runs, will have to work the constituency if he hope to win his father’s seat. Given Mick Wallace’s neglect of the constituency there doesn’t appear to be a huge foundation for Fionn to build on. Will His father’s personal vote still be there for him? Let’s see

Elsewhere Verona Murphy has opened a second office, this time in New Ross. Interesting choice of location! Surely it’s a coincidence that once more her office is within sight of that of a political running mate? Wexford is the largest county in Leinster. Despite the reality that there’s plenty of office and shop space for rent, Verona opened her first office 50M from the office run by Michael D’arcy in Wexford. Now here second office in New Ross is 100M along the Quays from Paul Kehoe. Front windows sport a large poster of Verona announcing her as a Fine Gael Election Candidate. No mention of whether she means Bye-election or General Election suggesting the likelihood of Verona wanting an each way bet as to which will come first.

Fianna Fail’s Gorey think in spent much of the time focusing on Brexit. In time this may well tell us more than we may think at first hand about whether we’ll have a bye election at all. FF have committed to supporting a budget. That budget will come in about a month. Implementing it will mean FF support for the Finance Bill and Social Welfare Bill, that’s presuming there is the annual fiver for all from Pascal Donnohue.

Expect the Confidence and Supply agreement to start to fray around the edges within a month on the many other issues of the day. That’ll coincide nicely from a FF point of view with Brexit date and the uncertainty along the border. Given FF dominance in rural Ireland around the border expect FF to highlight what it will claim to be FG failings from November onwards. That scenario may well drop right into a bye election campaign. FG may prefer to see that campaign precede Brexit given the possible role that Rosslare may play and the potential for a localised issue. On the other hand given Verona Murphy’s track record in haulage, they may well relish such an issue.

FG will select their candidate tonight while FF have yet to pick. Lisa McDonald will fight to have her name on the ballot paper however she will face opposition from Malcolm Byrne. Lisa McDonald will be a FF candidate at the next general election. Internally there are a number of different views in FF on their ticket when the country goes to the polls. A bye-election is different. Already Prospective FF candidates are differing on local issues such as the location of the future district Garda HQ.  There may be more down the tracks in FF before the dust settles.

I’ll end with a true story about a prospective candidate in the bye election who on hearing of a death in a town in the county recently arrived to the wake to sympathise. After expressing their condolences to the bereaved the candidate took to pressing the flesh and asking for the No 1 vote. After a few minutes a family member of the deceased took umbrage as the deceased was of a different political line to the prospective candidate. The candidate was approached and asked to stop asking for the No 1 vote. “Certainly” was the response from the prospective candidate who subsequently re-worked the room asking this time for the No 2 vote.

The things some will do for a vote!