Who will be Wexford’s five TDs after election 2020?
It’s time for people to go to the polls to elect the five TDs they want to represent County Wexford in the Dáil for the next Government term, however long it lasts.
They have a choice of 15 candidates, including sitting TDs Brendan Howlin of Labour, Paul Kehoe and Michael D’Arcy of Fine Gael and James Browne and Malcolm Byrne of Fianna Fail – the latter won the seat vacated by Independents4Change MEP Mick Wallace in the November by-election.
Will it be plus ca change, with the Wexford constituency opting to return the same five names, or will General Election 2020 bring a few surprises?
With a crowded field, one thing is certain, the competition for first preference votes and transfers is going to be intense.
It won’t be confined to rivalry between parties either, as the battle for votes within Fianna Fail is fierce, with four candidates running for election – Browne and Byrne in the north of the county and Cllr. Lisa McDonald, who polled 6,355 first preference votes in the 2007 general election, and Cllr. Michael Sheehan, making his first Dáil bid, in the south.
James Browne who took the second seat behind poll-topper Howlin in the 2016 election, is on record as saying that ‘nobody is safe’ under these conditions.
With Fianna Fail’s improvement in the polls, the party will be hoping to retain two seats (one of which it has ironically held for only matter of weeks) to return to a position last seen in 2007 when it elected TDs John Browne (father of James) and Sean Connick of New Ross, who was the last TD from the town.
Strong performer Malcolm Byrne, courageously facing into his fourth election in the space of eight months (local, European, by-election and general election), will be hoping to retain the seat which he has barely had time to warm up.
But party colleagues McDonald, who was the original party nominee on an abandoned two-candidate ticket, and the determined Sheehan, who is enjoying enviable public exposure as County Council chairman, will be snapping at his heels and hoping to either unseat him or join him which would depend on the wind of change blowing even stronger in favour of Fianna Fail and against the Government party which has suffered a popularity decline in the polls.
In 2016, Mick Wallace took the third seat with 11.1% of the first preference vote and he was followed in capturing the fourth and fifth seats by Fine Gael’s Michael D’Arcy (10.9%) and Paul Kehoe (10.7%) with
Deputy Kehoe facing a down-tothe-wire battle for the last seat, as he also did in 2011 when Mick Wallace topped the poll and Dr. Liam Twomey made it two for Fine Gael.
Four years ago, Sinn Fein’s Johnny Mythen of Enniscorthy narrowly missed the seat taken by Deputy Kehoe, finishing with 9,652 votes on count 14, compared to Kehoe’s winning 9,704.
Mythen was unfortunate enough to lose his Council seat in last year’s local elections but can he return to winning form on the back of a Sinn Féin surge in the polls, having taken 10.3% of the by-election first preference vote against winner Malcolm Byrne’s 31.2%?
If he does, it will be a spectacular phoenix-from-the-ashes turn-around.
In determining the performance of Fine Gael, the Verona Murphy factor must be taken into account. Having been selected to run for the party in the by-election, the National Road Hauliers Association President polled an impressive 9,453 first preference votes (21.8%), coming in third place, but she was subsequently jettisoned from the party in the wake of controversial campaign comments about migrants and is now going it alone as an Independent.
The by-election controversy raised her profile but without the Fine Gael machine behind her, can she come close to repeating the performance in the very different landscape of a general election and emulate Mick Wallace’s previous triumph as a maverick Independent?
If so, she would only be the third Independent ever elected in Wexford, after Wallace and former TD Liam Twomey who originally stood as an Independent and won a seat before later joining Fine Gael.
And if she or the Wexford solicitor Lisa McDonald manage to take a seat, they will be only the second woman in Wexford ever to do so since the foundation of the State.
The distinction of being the only female TD (and later MEP) in the Wexford constituency, lies with Fine Gael’s Avril Doyle who was first elected in 1982 at the age of 33. She is now retired. That is a shocking statistic and a disheartening one for the four women candidates on the ballot paper.
Up to 2016, Ireland had returned 114 women to the Dáil and only one of them was from Wexford, giving the county one of the worst female election rates in a country which is below the European average when comes to the number of women in political office and well below the 40% target for representation.
Wexford FC chairman Seanie O’Shea of Independents4Change is bidding to take back the seat which Mick Wallace first won as a political newcomer and Independent in 2011.
While no politician wants to be publicly regarded as safe, there is a general belief that long-serving Labour TD and former Government Minister (Health, Environment, Public Expenditure and Reform) Brendan Howlin, should top the poll.
His 33-year tenure in the Dáil has seen his vote holding its own through the changing political fortunes of others, hovering between 13 and 15% of Wexford first preferences since 2002, coming from an all-time high of 19.8% in 1992. He was first elected in 1987.
The Labour leader’s personal vote has remained strong even as his party’s strength has waned, by virtue of his strong national profile and his hard-working commitment to the constituency.
His parliamentary assistant George Lawlor’s recent by-election outing indicated a healthy position - he polled 8,024 first preferences.
Rosslare Council chairman Ger Carthy (Independent) of Lady’s Island polled 4.4% of first preferences in his first Dáil bid in 2016 and topped the poll in the local elections last May. His profile is increasing with each outing and the long game could be his strategy.
The stomping ground of new Aontú councillor Jim Codd is not a million miles away in Bridgetown and he and Carthy will be dipping into the same pool of votes.
Widespread concern about the climate change crisis could bring a voting windfall for the Green Party and Karin Dubsky (who polled 2490 first preferences in the by-election) might have cashed in on that, but she pulled out of the race and was replaced by Paula Rosingrave whose recognition awareness factor is not as high.
Meanwhile, Solidarity People
Before Profit candidate Deirdre Wadding has made a comeback to the hustings, in her first Dáil bid, after resigning the seat she won on the Council in 2014. Charity shop owner Bart Murphy from Foulksmills, who is campaigning on the commercial rates issue, completes the field.
The number crunchers will tell you that if you’re not in the top five after the first count shakedown, your chances of getting elected in Wexford, are historically less than 8%.
You need 60% of the quota to be in with a chance of a seat and with the quota expected to be around 12,000, that’s 7,200 on the first count.
In the last 50 years, only three candidates have been elected in Wexford with less than 60% of the quota – Brendan Howlin in 1987, Tony Dempsey in 2002 and John Browne in 2011.
With the Fianna Fail vote spread thinly over four candidates, four sitting TDs elbowing each other in north Wexford, Verona Murphy up against Kehoe and D’Arcy, a threatened Fine Gael backlash, a Green wave and a Sinn Fein surge, transfers are going to be crucial in this election.
Bring a packed lunch, it could be a long count.