Recriminations in Fine Gael following poor election showing
THOMAS WALSH RAN A HIGH PROFILE CAMPAIGN BUT IN THE WAKE OF DISAPPOINTING VOTE HE IS CRITICAL OF STRATEGY
FOR Thomas Walsh, the Ballygawley councillor who was a late addition to the Fine Gael ticket for this general election, there was a sense of deep frustration at the party for the way in which matters unfolded before and during the election campaign – and also criticism of outgoing party TD Tony McLoughlin.
Walsh was only added last December to the ticket as FG dithered over who it should pick with Blaine Gaffney pulling out of the race despite being one of a few who had been interviewed as a possible running mate to Senator Frank Feighan.
Walsh polled 4,760 first preferences in his first outing at national level, having only been elected to Sligo County Council for the first-time last May.
However, it was a very disappointing performance for the party, with the combined Fine Gael vote in the constituency only just exceeding 10000 votes – some two thousand votes short of a quota.
It provided a major reality check for the party who won two out of three seats in the Sligo-North Leitrim area less than ten years ago in 2011.
“I think we got our vote management very wrong and our voting strategy,” Walsh commented at the count on Sunday.
“I was allocated 90pc of Sligo, I found that to be very unfair and my running mate was allocated a huge amount more area with a much larger vote and at that point I felt where I had lower name recognition, a smaller area to cover and being a first time candidate I should have had the larger area so I think we got that very, very wrong.
“We had a large number of candidates in Sligo and we should have been looking at where the population was based and where we should manage the vote better.
“In the last week obviously it was all open and Deputy Tony McLoughlin unfortunately decided to intervene and canvass with the Leitrim candidate, my running mate Senator Feighan, which was very, very disappointing.
“There was a party directive, I was the Sligo candidate, that Sligo was to be allocated to me but unfortunately Deputy McLoughlin ignored that directive and I think that’s very disappointing but that’s something we’ ll have to look at internally post this election outcome.”
A late row also erupted over a text allegedly sent by Walsh to party members seeking their support and purporting to come from party headquarters, another issue to be sorted out in the aftermath of a fraught campaign.
The decision of both Marian Harkin and John Perry to contest the election also proved to be a drain of Fine Gael’s support, according to Walsh.
“If we ran one candidate we would have won a seat, and personally I feel Marian Harkin entering the race and former Minister Perry affected the Fine Gael vote across a lot of boxes, I think John is on about 4pc there and Marian has taken a huge chunk of the Fine Gael vote in south and west Sligo and that makes it very difficult to retain a seat when you’re running two candidates and you have four candidates pulling out of that Fine Gael vote.”
As for his own campaign, Walsh stressed that he was “very happy” with his efforts having polled relatively well across county Sligo.
“Very, very happy with my campaign. I was added to the ticket early in December just elected to the council of the 24 th May so within seven months I’m on a general election ticket. Very, very positive, very happy with my campaign, probably ran one the best campaigns in this constituency, had over 220 canvassers, I was first to get the posters up and we were very organised.”
“What did affect me and our Fine Gael vote, nationally our Fine Gael vote is down; in 2016 we were at 28pc, here in this region were at 17pc by the tally figures so that’s a big drop.”
In terms of an explanation for such a drop in support countrywide, Walsh said the failure of Fine Gael to translate macro-economic success into real benefits for citizens was one of the reasons for their disappointment.
“There’s a disconnect between our economy growing.
We recorded a surplus in 2019 one €1.9billion, but people aren’t finding that in their homes or on their kitchen tables or in local services.
“Accessing local services seems to be a big issue - I spoke to a number of nurses across the campaign on doorsteps and they’re very angry because they’re under severe pressure, parents with children with autism and accessing simple services like bus services, OT has been cut simple things, and when we’re recording a surplus in our economy of €1.9billion that’s what we need to be looking at, local services in local communities.
“What we’ve done very well is infrastructure, big build projects, large infrastructure, we have the highest ever roads budget in the history of that state, the eastern Garavogue and the N4 but people want to see the economy improvements in their homes, within their families and on their kitchen tables and I think that’s where there is a disconnect and we need to do something about that.”