Fianna Fáil gears up for the general election ‘sooner rather than later’

FIANNA Fáil is gearing up a general election ‘sooner rather than later’ – with party veteran Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher telling the Mail that ‘October would be a good time’.

This came as both Mr Gallagher and his Fianna Fáil colleague Senator Malcolm Byrne ruled themselves out of the European race.

In a letter to party members in Donegal, Mr Gallagher, 75, said he would not be letting his name go forward for consideration for the party’s selection process for the European elections in June.

The former TD for the county and MEP for the Midlands-NorthWest

constituency wrote that he would instead play his part in maximising the ‘party’s best chances of winning the optimum number of seats’.

The move is an indication that Mr Gallagher will contest the general election for the party in Donegal, with Fianna Fáil’s sitting TD, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, among those tipped to be Ireland’s next European Commissioner.

Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail last night, Mr Gallagher said he believed ‘October would be a good time for an election’, and not November as has been speculated.

‘I’m old enough to remember when we had two winter general elections in one year [1982].

‘It’s disastrous and the Taoiseach has already said he doesn’t want a winter election,’ he said.

Some in Fianna Fail have speculated privately that a general election before the local and European elections in June could be on the cards. Party members are due to select MEP candidates for the Midlands-North-West constituency in the coming weeks, with TD for Laois-Offaly Barry Cowen, along with Senator Lisa Chambers, expected to be in the running.

Malcolm Byrne fired the starting gun for the general election race in the new Wicklow-Wexford Dáil constituency by also bowing out of the European contest.

The senator and former TD said: ‘I am very grateful to members of the party who nominated me to contest the European election but I intend to concentrate on trying to win a Dáil seat in the new north Wexford and south Wicklow area.’

Mr Byrne previously served as a TD for a matter of weeks, after winning a by-election in Wexford at the end of 2019 before losing his seat in the general election in February of the following year.

The senator had been weighing up a run at the European parliament elections this June, after a strong showing in the 2019 race to become an MEP with 9% first-preference votes.

The new three-seat WicklowWexford constituency was created by the Electoral Commission last year after a boundary review and contains large areas of south Wicklow, including Arklow, and of north Wexford, including Gorey.

Currently all sitting TDs in the Wicklow constituency are from the north of the county, while all of the sitting TDs in Wexford are from the south of the county, making the Wexford-Wicklow constituency untested with no incumbents.

Senator Byrne is the only national representative in Leinster House who is from the area.

The local elections in June will give parties much food for thought about who they will run in a general election, which is not due to be held until March 2025.

‘A winter election is disastrous’ ‘I’m not planning one’

Last May, the Irish Daily Mail revealed that Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney told business leaders that a general election is set to be held in November 2024.

While senior ministers publicly say they expect the Government to run its full term to March 2025, privately senior figures in Government still believe the election will be at the end of this year.

It is the prerogative of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to dissolve the Dáil and call an early poll. Asked on RTÉ last week if there would be an early election, the Taoiseach replied, ‘I’m not planning one’. Mr Varadkar is facing into the election without at least eight TDs elected in 2020 for Fine Gael.

Minister for Finance Michael McGrath also said last week that his preference was that the Government would run its full term.