THE former senator, Mr Des Hanafin, could be set for a political renaissance following the decision of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party to include him in the list of candidates to contest the forthcoming Seanad elections.
Should Mr Hanafin succeed in securing a seat, he will be joining his daughter, Mary, in the Oireachtas. She won a Dail seat for Fianna Fail in Dun Laoghaire in the general election.
Mr Hanafin lost the party whip five years ago on the abortion issue and was defeated in the last Seanad election by only a percentage of a vote.
Fianna Fail's deputies, senators and MEPs voted yesterday to nominate a total of 14 candidates on to five panels: cultural and educational, agricultural, labour, industrial and commercial and administrative.
Candidates have already been nominated to contest the election by non- Oireachtas agencies.
Each party will now issue an official list of its candidates to its county and borough councillors, TDs and members of the outgoing Seanad. The ballot papers are due to be issued on July 23rd and the "count takes place in early August.
The Fianna Fail parliamentary party also nominated two former colleagues who lost their seats in the election, Mr M.J. Nolan, Carlow/Kilkenny, and Mr Liam Fitzgerald, Dublin North East.
Only one woman, Ms Margaret Cox, was nominated by Fianna Fail yesterday. She polled well in the Galway West constituency in the general election. The other candidates are Cllr Frank Chambers; a former minister of state, Mr Denis Lyons; Mr Jim Walsh, and outgoing Senators Donie Cassidy, Mick Lanigan, Sean Byrne, Michael Finneran, Don Lydon, Tom Fitzgerald, and Paddy McGowan.
The Fine Gael parliamentary party has also nominated a number of high- profile former TDs as well as the outgoing leader of the House, Senator Maurice Manning, and the Cathaoirleach, Senator Liam Cosgrave. Ms Madeleine Taylor-Quinn, who formerly represented Clare in the Dail, is a candidate as is Mr John Connor, who failed to be re-elected to the Dail for Longford- Roscommon.
Mr Tom Berkery, who attempted to take the Fine Gael seat vacated by Mr Michael Lowry in North Tipperary, has also been nominated, along with the newly- appointed outgoing Senator, Ms Niamh Cosgrave. The outgoing Cork Senator, Mr Denis (Dino) Cregan, will also be a candidate.
The other nominations include the former senator Mr Joe Doyle as well as Mr Frank McDermott, Mr Frank O'Kelly, Mr Aidan O'Connor, Mr Fergus O'Dowd, Mr Ernie Caffrey and Mr Nicholas Dunlea. The former Minister of State, Ms Avril Doyle, who lost her Dail seat in the election, has already been nominated by an outside body as has Mr Paddy Harte, who also fell at the last election.