VERONA MURPHY VOWS TO RUN AGAIN AS FINE GAEL LOSES ALL FOUR BY-ELECTIONS
As Fine Gael fails to win any seat in by-elections, TDs are divided over Verona Murphy
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar’s hopes of retaining power took a savage blow last night as Fine Gael failed to win any of four by-elections – and a viable alternative alliance began to emerge.
Fianna Fáil and the Green Party will go into the Christmas break confident that they can form a Government with other parties next year, while Fine Gael survey the latest electoral setback under Mr Varadkar’s leadership.
Fianna Fáil won seats in Wexford and Cork North Central, Sinn Féin took a surprise seat in Dublin Mid-West and the Greens last night triumphed in Dublin Fingal – the party’s first ever by-election win.
Even an encouraging performance from Fine Gael’s anti-immigration candidate Verona Murphy became a negative for the Taoiseach last night with the party split on whether she should be kept on the party ticket for next year’s general election.
Ms Murphy won 23.8% of the first preference vote in Wexford. On polling day she had turned on the media saying that she had been a victim of ‘character assassination’ over her comments on asylum seekers.
Many in Fine Gael’s senior ranks want Ms Murphy taken off the Fine Gael ticket for the general election but she says she is running ‘no matter what’.
Standing beside Ms Murphy at a press conference, her election manager Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, insisted she would be retained on the Fine Gael ticket.
However, Mr Varadkar was far less emphatic last night calling a video where she made claims of character assassination ‘bizarre’.
‘It’s the normal course of events that after a by-election we carry out a review of each contest,’ said Mr Varadkar, ‘and we carry out a review of each contest so it’s always in the power of executive council on my recommendation to add candidates or delete candidates.’
Commenting on a social media video which carried Ms Murphy’s claims of character assassination, he said: ‘I only saw it last night and I have to say I thought it was kind of bizarre. It wasn’t approved by the party but as I say that will form part of the review that we will carry out in all four constituencies in the next couple of weeks as we always do.’
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe also said last night that all Fine Gael tickets are open for review before the election. Mr Donohoe told RTÉ last night: ‘That decision has not yet been made. Every ticket is open to review but the comfort or solace Verona is seeking is not something I can give her.’
When this was put to Ms Murphy last night after the Wexford result was declared, she told reporters: ‘That’s all for another day, that’s all for another day.’
A senior Fine Gael figure briefing journalists last night at Dublin count centres said it was ‘highly probable’ that Ms Murphy would be removed from the Wexford ticket and two ministers, Michael D’Arcy and Paul Kehoe, would run without her.
They added: ‘The parliamentary party are going to have their say, many believe she damaged us in these by-elections.’
Separately, a Cabinet source said last night Ms Murphy’s removal from the ticket could happen as early as next week.
Fianna Fáil took two seats last night. Fianna Fáil’s Malcolm Byrne won 31.2% of the first preference vote with 12,046. He took the seat but Ms Murphy’s 23.8% and 9,543 was impressive for a first-time candidate.
Fianna Fáil also retained the seat that had been vacated by former TD Billy Kelliher in Cork North Central when Padraig O’Sullivan’s 7,148 first preference votes pushed him ahead of Sinn Féin’s Thomas Gould. The Green Party’s Joe O’Brien edged out Fianna Fáil’s Lorraine Clifford-Lee in Dublin Fingal.
With Fianna Fáil taking two seats and the Green Party another, a viable alternative government is taking shape. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan served in the 2007-2011 coalition.
There was a surprise win for Sinn Féin’s Mark Ward in the Dublin Mid-West seat vacated by former Fine Gael Minister Frances Fitzgerald – a crucial win for SF leader Mary Lou McDonald who was in need of an electoral fillip.
Though it is traditionally difficult for a government party to win a byelection the complete washout for Mr Varadkar is the clearest sign yet that he is not the great electoral powerhouse that Fine Gael TDs had been assured they were getting when they removed Enda Kenny two-and-a-half years ago.
Fine Gael was already the second party to Fianna Fáil nationally after the local elections and the party appeared in disarray last night.
A senior party source told the Irish Mail on Sunday last night that ‘all election tickets are open to review – especially the one in Wexford’.
Party mandarins were furious that Ms Murphy had allowed the row over her claims that asylum seekers needed to be ‘deprogrammed’ explode again with her allegations of ‘character assassination’ by the media.
However, her campaign manager Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan insisted that she had endured a ‘very difficult and turbulent campaign’ – although he was forced to accept she had faced the same scrutiny as any other candidate.
Standing beside the candidate, he responded ‘yes’ on whether she would be the party’s general election candidate when it is held in the first half of next year.
And speaking on RTÉ he said: ‘She had a very difficult and turbulent campaign. Verona Murphy apologised on a number of occasions for irresponsible utterances. I accept that apology. I was with her when those apologies were made. The video ... was not an official Fine Gael video, it wasn’t
endorsed by Fine Gael.’
Fine Gael will still be able to pass crucial votes in the Dáil with the support of Fianna Fáil. But the fact that Fianna Fáil won two seats and they none crucially shifts the balance of power in Leinster House.
Mr Varadkar last night tried to put a positive spin on the by-elections by saying: ‘If this result was repeated in a general election all four of our candidates would be elected today, they had the quota in three seats and ¾ of a quota in the other, so a good performance in that sense.’ He added that the low turnout was a problem.