Fired-Up Green’s Farrago At The Photo-Op Café

Hats off to Dossing Times for picking up on Dun Laoighre Rathdown Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe’s recent opportune blog sideswipe at his Leader’s putative coalition partners.

The cerebral Shankill architect, environmental campaigner, and sitting Dáil deputy was in Dublin city centre last Saturday when the street aggression started. ‘Not much fun being in town with the kids, so without much information about what was going on we headed as far away from the action as possible. Shops were pulling their shutters down, and it was time to leave’, Deputy Cuffe wrote.

‘Report of chairs being thrown through the windows of the Progressive Democrats Headquarters on South Frederick Street. Possibly the same chairs that Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny used for their photo-op at Dunne and Crescenzi a few months previously. Speaking of which, whatever happened to that Programme for Government that they were working on, or was it all froth from their cappuccinos?’

Ouch!

Dossing Times airs the question ‘does Mr Cuffe’s statement sound like a party locked into the rainbow?’

That’s where Cuffe’s constituency battle enters the picture. There’ll be skin and hair flying in the upcoming General Election campaign in Dun Laoighre Rathdown, especially in the scrap for young votes. There are five sitting TDs —Ciarán Cuffe (Green), Fiona O’Malley (PD), Mary Hanafin and Barry Andrews (FF), Eamon Gilmore (Labour). They’re all high profile and all relatively young and, broadly speaking, attractive. All five are expected to stand for re-election and the constituency remains a five-seater. Note that there is no Fine Gael TD representing this five seat constituency.

In 2002, on a 58.6% turnout, the quota was 8,939.

Current Fianna Fáil Education Minister Mary Hanafin topped the poll with 8,818 votes, Labour Party Environment spokesperson Eamon Gilmore had 8,271, Ógra Fianna Fáil Chair Barry Andrews had 7,425 while from another political dynasty Progresssive Democrat Fiona O’Malley got 7,166. Ciarán Cuffe got only 5,002 first preference votes.

Hanafin and Gilmore reached the quota without difficulty to be re-elected. Andrews, O’Malley and Cuffe were all elected after the eleventh count. Ciarán Cuffe’s biggest blocks of transfers came from Sinn Féin and from Niamh Breathnach of Labour. Cuffe didn’t get transfers from the unelected main FG candidate who was in the race till the end and whose votes therefore were not distributed.

So Ciarán Cuffe arguably enters the upcoming General Election campaign as the back marker, and critically needs more first preference votes, particularly at the expense of Fine Gael.

Ah yes, Fine Gael. In 2002 Cuffe beat off Fine Gael’s front-running candidate, Mr Liam Cosgrave. At the final count, Cuffe had 8,670 votes and was over 1,100 votes clear of Cosgrave on 7,530.

So who will challenge Cuffe for Fine Gael to restore their honour in Dun Laoighre Rathdown in 2007? Liam Cosgrave? Eh, no. He’s had legal difficulties relating to undeclared political donations and the Mahon Tribunal. You’d think there’d be no shortage of silver-haired charmers ready to step in and rescue this stolid constituency from total domination by young liberal-minded public representation.

Fine Gael’s website is strangely laconic on the matter. The General Election Candidates page for the Dun Laoighre Rathdown constituency informs that

‘This constituency covers all or part of the following electoral areas: Ballybrack, Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, Stillorgan.

Sorry, but we do not have any TD or Senators for this area.’

It seems they don’t have a candidate either.

Political lore is that there’s never any shortage of people willing to contest a winnable seat for a major party. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

Mine is that if the party which aspires to lead an alternative government after the next election doesn’t believe it can take one seat in a five-seater constituency in the capital’s leafy suburbs, Ciarán Cuffe is right to rubbish them and their lackeys in Labour.

The election battle in Dun Laoighre Rathdown will be for positioning not seats.

Time for an Americano.