Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

One of Bertie Ahern’s home stretch events today was to launch the Dublin Airport Authority’s plan for Dublin Airport City.   Not to put too fine a point on it, this seems like one of the crazier proposals to have emerged over the last year, and symptomatic of much of what is wrong with governance and [...]

Jim McDaid returns from retirement (remember that?) and is joined by the man who brought him out of retirement, Niall Blaney.
Update - McDaid says tension between himself and Blaney made it work - says if he had not come back FF would not have held seat.

From a contributor, if Keaveny goes as fifth from top her transfers are forecast to carry MacLoughlinn and Blaney over the line for seats 2 and 3

From a commenter
First count in Donegal NE
Blaney, Niall   6288
Doherty, Mary   339
Gallagher, Frank        520
Harte, Jimmy    1313
Keaveney, Cecilia       6362
MacLochlainn, Padraig   6733
McDaid, James   6724
McGarvey, Ian   766
McGuinness, Arthur      86
McHugh, Joe     8711
McLaughlin, Siobhan     703
Turnout 38,921
Valid Poll
Quota   9637
Turnout 68%
McGuinness & Doherty to [...]

This and Dublin South East are great counts. Donegal is very very tight. Quota: 9541
McHugh (FG) 8447
McDaid (FF) 6724
MacLochlainn (SF) 6630
Kaeveney (FF) 6252
Blaney (FF) 6275
Order of elimination is the whole story here. Keaveney holds the balance between McDaid Blaney and SF it seems.

Joe McHugh is set top the poll and join his wife Olwyn Enright (yes Bloggorah that’s a female Olwyn Enright!) in Dail Eireann.
Tallies…
Blaney 6275
Doherty 330
Gallagher 512
Harte 1290
Keavney 6252
MacLochlainn 6630
McDaid 6724
McGuinness
McHugh 8447
McLaughlin 801

With about 30 boxes open… Cecilia Keavney has 34% of the vote , SF Candidate Padraig MacLochlainn performing well with 27% of the vote. More in the next 20 minutes.

Cork NC in the mysay box Listen here Allen and Kelleher (<25%) are out in front with Gerrry Kelly and Kathleen lynch on 11%
Donegal North East tallies, McLoughlin (SF - 31%) Keaveney (FF) 30% McHugh 20% (a good result from boxes outside his area) Blaney (FF) 6% McDaid (FF) 2.9%
Geography doing its bit. McHugh most [...]

At the least it seems Sinn Fein are hoping to pick up 6 additional seats in this election. Mary Lou McDonald reckons they can pick up seats in Donegal (not sure if one or both), Sligo-North Leitrim, Cork North Central, Waterford and Wexford. She also suggests seats in Dublin (well she would) though not specifying [...]

Donegal South-West, not wanting to be left out the fun and games in North-East, has apparently seen a power play by FG HQ.  Joining the trend of unretirements, Dinny McGinley says he’s back on the ticket at the expense of Cllr Terence Slowey, who apparently has been persuaded to withdraw [UPDATED 2 MARCH].

Amidst the plethora of “2006-in-review” articles populating today’s papers, there is one very interesting piece in the Tribune. The way our electoral system works makes polls slightly unhelpful—ignoring particularity within constituencies and also the nature of transfers—but the Tribune have taken a look across the most contested constituencies to attempt to predict the likely election [...]

News this evening that the long Mitchell presence in the Dail will end next year with Gay’s decision to pursue his MEP career rather than run again as a TD. FG sound optimistic that they can hold the seat with Catherine Byrne, but that still leaves Labour with a battle to get their second [...]

From the Donegal Democrat. Labour’s spokeswoman on education, Jan O’Sullivan, angered educators in Donegal when, speaking on Newstalk, she said:
Donegal ended up coming out badly in the guide but they don’t have any, either IT or university, up there.
In response Paul Hannigan, Director of Letterkenny IT: said “The impression that Donegal is the poor relation [...]

So Deputy Niall Blaney is back in Fianna Fail. After thirty five years albeit of a highly local existence, Independent Fianna Fail is now defunct. However pleased Blaney and his camp may be, there is a smouldering resentment at the perception that this was a central deal done without reference to the party’s local Ceantair. [...]

As if confirmation was needed, Jim McDaid has confirmed the sense of betrayal felt by Donegal North East Fianna Fail over the return of the Blaney camp to the mothership.

If today’s Irish Times (subs. req’d) is correct, we should get confirmation of Mick’s story from a few weeks ago: that the Donegal North East merger of Fianna Fail and Independent Fianna Fail is going ahead, but only with an understanding from the fabled “grassroots” that a Letterkenny candidate must be on the ticket.