Polarised Macroom/Blarney is proving too close to call
THE battle for the six seats in the new Macroom Blarney Municipal District is truly intriguing, where there are three sitting county councillors among the 12 candidates.
The new district is much larger than any of the outgoing councillors have experienced before and reports are that it has been ‘challenging’ to cover the ground.
The new district is also more polarised geographically, with strong voter populations in Blarney/Tower and another in Macroom.
Candidates have pointed out that while they may be well known and respected in one, they may be unheard of at the other end of the district.
Add to this the swing against the government parties, particularly Labour, and the ‘don’t know’ factor increases.
Plus, with a swing to Sinn Fein and independent candidates, it’s very difficult to predict the outcome. However, it does seem sure that the last few seats could go in any direction.
Fine Gael have three candidates running, Fianna Fail two, Labour and Sinn Fein have one each, with the rest either independent of non-party.
Macroom returned two Fine Gael, one Labour and one Fianna Fáil representative to County Hall in 2009 while Blarney returned the same party mix.
With 43,398 citizens included in the ward, each new councillor will represent approximately 7,233 people.