MALE, PALE AND STALE
Former Rose and Fine Gael MEP blasts Fianna Fáil’s Euro slate of 50-something men
FIANNA Fáil faces a selection dilemma amid claims that its European elections selection is ‘male, pale and stale’.
The party has so far selected three men, all aged 56, to contest the June election.
Sitting MEPs Barry Andrews and Billy Kelleher will contest the Dublin and South constituencies, while sitting TD for Laois-Offaly Barry Cowen will contest the Midlands North-West constituency.
Speaking in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Fine Gael MEP for Midlands North-West Maria Walsh – who is 20 years their junior – criticised the current all-male selection by Fianna Fáil.
‘I think male, pale and stale is a very common theme out of them,’ she said. ‘We are not a representation if we continue to send certain age, certain skin colours, certain gendered people back here [to Strasbourg]. And the fact that a Government party has only selected... three men, well, that’s on them,’ she said.
In response, Mr Cowen wrote on social media: ‘After five years that’s all you have to say? Personal insults about incomplete tickets?’
A spokeswoman for Fianna Fáil said the candidate selection process is ongoing but added that ‘it is disappointing to see one candidate making comments which clearly indicate they believe people, based on their age, somehow have less to offer the electorate’.
Ms Walsh, 36, who won the Rose of Tralee contest in 2014, pointed out that Fine Gael returned four women in 2019.
Mr Andrews said the final ticket had not been set, but admitted: ‘It isn’t a good look.
‘We have to have more female candidates before the people, and we didn’t do great in 2019.’
On Monday, Fianna Fáil party members in Midlands NorthWest selected Mr Cowen as the candidate to run for a seat in the constituency.
Mr Cowen got 894 first-preference votes ahead of Niall Blaney’s 803 and Lisa Chambers’ 570. When Ms Chambers’ votes were allocated, Mr Cowen won by just 71 votes.
The party’s National Constituency Committee will now decide who else to add to the ticket. Ms Chambers is expected to be added ahead of Mr Blaney but the vote share has created a conundrum for the party. Several options were being suggested by party sources last night, including adding both Ms Chambers and Mr Blaney to the ticket, or appointing Mr Blaney to Ms Chambers’ current position as Leader of the Seanad to appease him in the event of non-selection.
‘There is an argument to add both of them to the ticket,’ another party source told the Irish Daily Mail.
In the South constituency where Billy Kelleher, the sitting MEP, is hoping to retain his seat, senior Fianna Fáil sources have confirmed that another candidate will be added to the ticket.
Mr Kelleher told the Mail that he did not believe his party needed ‘an unsubtle reminder regarding gender balance from Fine Gael’ and that candidate selection was ongoing.
Mayor of Carlow Fintan Phelan and former TD for Cork South West Margaret Murphy initially put their names forward for selection but withdrew in advance of the convention.
Ms Murphy has been ruled out because of the Cork base she shares with Mr Kelleher.
The general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), Antoinette Cunningham, was mooted as a contender after she announced her retirement from the AGSI last week after 33 years.
Contacted by the Mail last night, Ms Cunningham said she had not been contacted by Fianna Fáil about running for the party, but didn’t rule out the prospect.
Fine Gael has yet to finalise its ticket for the European elections but Ms Walsh has said she will seek re-election.
Fine Gael elected four female MEPs in the 2019 elections, Ms Walsh, Mairead McGuinness – who was subsequently appointed as an EU Commissioner when Phil Hogan resigned over the Golfgate controversy – Deirdre Clune and Frances Fitzgerald.
Ms Fitzgerald, Ms Clune and Ms McGuinness have said they will not be seeking re-election when their terms in office end this year.
‘Unsubtle reminder on gender balance’