Rumour of Griffin’s demise unfounded

AHEAD of the election, there had been much speculation that outgoing Tourism Minister Brendan Griffin’s seat may be in danger and that his vote in west Kerry was likely to be down across the peninsula.

An examination of the tallies from Dingle town and its immediate vicinity show that was wide of the mark. In and around Dingle, Deputy Griffin picked up by far the highest vote walking away with 506 first-preference votes from boxes in the area.

He was comfortably ahead of Sinn Féin’s Pa Daly who won a considerable 381 votes in the same boxes but was well behind his Fine Gael rival.

Even the Healy-Rae Machine couldn’t overturn Griffin in the Dingle area, though they pushed the Government deputy close, with Michael Healy-Rae coming away with a sizeable 467 votes.

Danny Healy-Rae picked up a handful of votes in the area, 26 to be precise, but the brothers’ combined tally still saw them behind Griffin.

Fianna Fáil had what could charitably be described as a poor performance in west Kerry. Between them, outgoing TD John Brassil, Norma Foley and Norma Moriarty only managed to pull in a combined vote of 222 votes, less than half of Griffin’s tally and well behind Sinn Féin.

Interestingly predictions of a Green Party surge in the area did not materialise. While Cleo Murphy performed well in the area, she picked up just 193 votes in the boxes examined here. It was certainly a decent showing but it is considerably lower than the Green vote many commentators had predicted before the election. Doubtless her party has room for growth in the area.