ELECTION RACE HAS CHANGED COURSE IN CLOSING WEEKS
JIM HAYES DUSTS OFF THE CRYSTAL BALL TO ASSESS THE CHANCES OF THE NINE CANDIDATES AS WEXFORD GOES TO THE POLLS IN ITS FIRST BY-ELECTION IN ALMOST THREE QUARTERS OF A CENTURY
LESS than a month ago we were still primed for a good old fashioned Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael shootout, with the Big Two facing off on the battlefield and the outgunned Labour, Sinn Féin and Greens waiting in the long grass, hoping to outflank the main combatants.
Yes, there had been a couple of minor skirmishes, but nothing to suggest anything other than a close-fought race was on the cards.
In September, Fianna Fáil contender Malcolm Byrne took ‘friendly’ fire in the public airing of an internal FF spat surrounding both his selection as the party’s by-election candidate and the addition of himself and New Ross councillor, Michael Sheehan, to the General Election ticket.
A fuming Lisa McDonald, the Rosslare District councillor chosen as the FF election candidate at convention last year, felt let down by her party and labelled it a ‘vanity project’.
Cllr McDonald made it clear that neither she nor her support team would be canvassing for Byrne in the south of the county.
The row left North Wexford councillor Byrne wounded but not seriously so. On balance, he was still lukewarm favourite for Mick Wallace’s vacant seat, his poll-topping victory in the local elections and 70,000 first preferences in the Europeans an indication of powerful vote-getting ability.
The big question was (and still is): can Fianna Fáil amass enough votes outside of Byrne’s home territory in North Wexford
to ensure he stays ahead of the chasing pack until he gets over the line?
The main obstacle standing in Malcolm Byrne’s way was Fine Gael’s new weapon, Verona Murphy, her backstory advanced by Leo Varakar as the dream fit for a modern FG: the self-made entrepreneur from a large family who left school early, passed the Leaving Cert at 35, and then graduated in Law, raised a child as a single mum, ran a successful company, and took on the demanding role of President of the Irish Road Hauliers Association.
In the spring, the Ramsgrange woman’s political career got off to a less than ideal start as a ‘no homeless issue in Wexford, thank-God’ comment on Virgin Media One’s Tonight Show drew fire from fellow guest Byrne and many others.
In the days that followed, Murphy sought to clarify the comment, and said she would better inform herself on the issue. Fine Gael relaxed. It was a blip, with no real harm done. But that was then, this is now. Nobody could have seen the storm clouds gathering ahead of Murphy’s claims this month that Isis is a big part of Ireland’s immigrant population and comments in an interview with reporter David Looby in this newspaper last week that migrant children as young as three could have been manipulated by the terror group.
The outcry has been loud, wide and (it must appear to Murphy) relentless.
This time, it’s more than a blip for Fine Gael who dropped a couple of points in a national poll last weekend. Their chances of having three TDs in Wexford for the first time since 1982 are thought to have been dealt a severe blow.
How much of a blow remains to be seen.
One national newspaper despatched a reporter to Wexford last week to suss out the mood of the people here. The article suggested Wexford is largely behind the candidate, but they interviewed neighbours and Fine Gael grassroots members – by any measure, not a representative sample.
Undoubtedly, there are some who admire Verona Murphy for speaking up, and many who think her apology sincere, but it’s not certain this will translate into enough votes to give Fine Gael a third seat in Wexford.
The one thing we can say for sure is that at the bookies Murphy’s odds of winning have noticeably slipped and Byrne is now odds-on favourite to join his party colleague James Browne on the Dáil benches after the votes have been counted in Wexford on Saturday.
There are nine candidates in this race, of course, and while it’s improbable, it’s not impossible that someone else will steal Malcolm Byrne’s thunder.
After all, by-elections are strange creatures where the time of year, the weather, or a single local issue, can swing the day.
A by-election is not the star attraction in the mouth of Christmas and a low turnout is expected on Friday. Traditionally, this favours the larger, more mainstream parties – so good news for Byrne and maybe Murphy then.
This election campaign has not been dominated by one single issue, but the scandal of inadequate child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in a county that has witnessed its fair share of tragedies in this area has hung over it like a dark cloud, with all candidates at least acknowledging the problems.
There is a belief that a high-profile and credible independent candidate standing on a child mental health platform could have given the mainstream contenders a real run for their money - someone like Dr Kieran Moore, the Child Psychiatric Consultant who resigned his post in Wexford last year citing burnout, terrible working conditions and a service ‘completely unfit for purpose’.
There are no single-minded mental health torchbearers in this campaign but it’s conceivable that someone may yet take up that particular challenge in next year’s general election.
THE last time Wexford went to the polls in a by-election was way back in 1945. In a four-horse race, 27-year-old first time Labour candidate Brendan Corish secured over half the vote to easily fill the seat left vacant after the death of his father Richard.
Labour’s rising star three quarters of a century later is George Lawlor, the Mayor of Wexford who topped the poll in the Wexford Borough District elections in May and is Brendan Howlin’s right-hand man in Wexford.
Lawlor would appear to have all the attributes to eventually succeed Howlin and could be a real surprise package in this by-election, but Friday’s poll may turn out to be no more than a useful testing the water exercise for the Wexford town councillor.
He’ll do very well in the Wexford district where he has a proven track record and instant name recognition, but he’s not as recognisable in the New Ross area and in North Wexford. Away from Wexford, Labour lack foot soldiers and have no representation on councils outside the Wexford district, so mounting a countywide campaign has its difficulties.
Labour will be watching this one very closely to not only gauge George Lawlor’s standing outside his own district, but also for some indication of the party’s popularity three years on from a dismal 2016 performance where they finished up with their lowest ever share of Dáil seats.
The Green Party will also be taking a keen interest in Wexford’s by-election.
They have environmental scientist Karin Dubsky in the field who, despite political inexperience, has impeccable credentials as founder of Coastwatch Europe and will benefit from the movement towards greener living fuelled by concerns over climate change.
The green vote will not be enough for Dubsky, who is competing for votes on Malcolm Byrne’s doorstep, but it could serve as a very useful platform from which to launch a general election campaign when green issues are likely to be high on the agenda and she’ll have the force of a fully mobilised national party machine behind her.
Having come very close to taking a Dáil seat at the expense of Minister Paul Kehoe in the 2016 General Election, Sinn Féin’s Johnny Mythen is a familiar name around the county.
His failure to secure a seat in Enniscorthy was one of the shocks of the local elections and Sinn Féin are still trying to figure out what went wrong. Mythen’s 800-odd vote in the local election six months ago cannot be taken as the only barometer however: it must be remembered that in the 2016 Dáil poll he achieved almost 1,000 more first preferences than Malcolm Byrne.
Mythen is not expected to repeat that performance, but like Labour, Sinn Féin will see this by-election as something of a litmus test as a General Election approaches.
Aontú’s Jim Codd has shown himself not afraid to speak his mind since being elected a first-time councillor in the Rosslare LEA earlier this year. The Bridgetown teacher is a popular figure in the south of the county but will struggle here to pick up votes in other areas of the county.
If the purpose of going to the polls on Friday was purely to find a natural successor to Mick Wallace, Solidarity/PBP candidate Cinnamon Blackmore would probably have the