FG count cost of turbulent election
AFTER a turbulent build up to the General Election, the eventual outcome provided significant disappointment for the Fine Gael organization locally.
Nationally, the party suffered its worst-ever performance, gaining just 20.9pc of the first-preference vote which pushed the party into third place, behind Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil.
Local party member, and former council election candidate Blaine Gaffney said the prospect of the party not having a seat in Sligo-Leitrim sent him ‘shuddering’.
“It hurts,” he told the Sligo Champion.
“We got an awful lot of things wrong. We haven’t recovered massively since the whole fiasco with the RIC, and if you didn’t think that was going to be an issue you’re out of touch and if you’re out of touch you don’t deserve to be in government.
“Where I look at it now we’re going to be potentially in a rebuilding mode and I’m looking forward to playing a part in that in Sligo town.”
Having sought to be the party’s candidate in the Sligo area following the withdrawal of Cllr Sinead Maguire, Mr Gaffney says the selection process and the length of it hampered the party’s chances of taking a seat.
“The situation was we weren’t helped by the fact that a candidate that withdrew after a substantial amount of work and effort had gone in to help her be elected at the local election and then subsequently pulled out so that didn’t help” Gaffney commented.
“Frank Feighan was coming from a base from a really, really small part of it in Roscommon but he has done substantially well in the sense that he has taken a good vote out of Sligo and a good vote in south Donegal.”
“Thomas Walsh wasn’t based in Sligo town, he was based in Ballygawley, he has put in a good campaign in the short period of time that he had, probably one of the best flamboyant campaigns we have seen here in a long time.”
“I mean he wasn’t given the time to get up and running and ultimately when I look at these numbers and you look at Sligo town and you look at where the votes are going to come back into the real urban centre the place where we’ve put an awful lot of money into were down, 220 million euro invested in Sligo over the last three years and the Fine Gael vote is down to the guts of 1200 votes so that will tell you that the fact that Sligo town was left empty has played a factor but the timing and selection of the candidates is really what hindered Thomas.”
Mr Gaffney lamented in particular the collapse of the party’s support in the Sligo urban area, where the absence of Tony McLoughlin from the party ticket was sorely felt.
“I look at Sligo-Strandhill and I see direct comparison on the FG vote in 19 and 16, compared to the last GE we’re down the guts of 1200 votes in Sligo Strandhill, 2055 vs 915.
“In comparison to the locals we’re down about a 1000 so we’re after getting a massive kick in the rear end in Sligo-Strandhill, the Fianna Fáil vote is down interesting enough as well, they’re down 344 in comparison with the General Election in 2016 and down 235 on the local elections, so the big winners are Harkin and Sinn Féin.
“We thought that the Sinn Féin vote might not increase substantially on the previous election with Chris MacManus out of the race but it is up but in comparison with the local election its up 914 votes so that’ ll tell you what’s happening