Labour's Childers has edge on FG's Phelan in race for third seat

CONSTITUENCY PROFILE: IRELAND EAST:AT A time when Fianna Fáil activists around the country freely admit there is unprecedented hostility towards them on the doorsteps and when Fine Gael is riding high in the opinion polls, there is a certain irony in the fact that the main Opposition party is fighting to retain a European seat in the constituency of Ireland East.

The political “grunts” who do the hard work on the ground all call it “Leinster” and cannot get their heads or their tongues around the “Ireland East” formulation.

The constituency is composed of all the counties of the historic province with the exception of Dublin, which is a European constituency in its own right, and Longford and Westmeath, which belong to the North-West (colloquially “Connacht-Ulster”) constituency.

In the last European Parliament elections five years ago, Ireland East was the political story of the campaign. Fine Gael pulled off a major coup by getting two MEPs elected, newcomer Mairead McGuinness, a prominent RTÉ broadcaster, and incumbent Avril Doyle.

The final result had McGuinness topping the poll with 114,249 first preferences or 25.21 per cent and Doyle with 69,511 or 15.34 per cent.

Fianna Fáil’s Liam Aylward secured 68,206 first preferences or 15.05 per cent and Labour’s Peter Cassells was fourth with 59,158 votes or 13.05 per cent.

Once again this time it is a case of Fine Gael and Labour vying for that third seat, judging from the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll published on May 16th.

Mairead McGuinness was comfortably in front with 33 per cent with Aylward also well-placed at 19 per cent.

But the big talking-point was the strong showing of Labour candidate Nessa Childers at 17 per cent whereas Fine Gael Senator John Paul Phelan was at 9 per cent.

Fine Gael strategists point to the fact that the combined total for the party is over the magic figure of 40 per cent and maintain that, with proper vote management, they can retain the second seat.

It’s quite a challenge. Childers announced her intention to run in early October.

Previously a member of the Labour Party, she resigned to join the Greens and was elected to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council in 2004.

She left the Greens last August and was approached by Labour the following month to run for Europe.

Her father, Erskine Hamilton Childers, a long-serving Fianna Fáil minister, was elected president of Ireland in 1973 but died of a heart attack the following year. Her grandfather, Robert Erskine Childers, was a leading figure in the War of Independence who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was executed in November 1922.

He was initially held in Wicklow jail after his arrest and this was the chosen location for the launch of his granddaughter’s campaign.

Labour is playing up the Childers family connection for all it is worth and the candidate’s former association with the Greens should also be an electoral asset.

Fortunately for Childers there is no Green candidate: Senator Déirdre de Búrca, a strong vote-getter in Dáil elections in Wicklow, is running in the Dublin constituency.

All these factors, allied to Labour’s current popularity with the electorate, should in theory at least be politically beneficial.

Five years ago, with two strong and high-profile personalities running for the party, Fine Gael did not divide the constituency for campaigning and vote-management purposes.

On this occasion, the party has allocated Carlow-Kilkenny, Kildare South, Laois-Offaly, Wexford and Wicklow to Phelan and the party is urging supporters in these Dáil constituencies to give him No 1.

Campaigns matter and Fine Gael believes its man, with his seven years’ experience in the Seanad, will make a greater impression than his Labour opponent. There may be some sharp confrontations on local radio between now and polling day.

Fianna Fáil MEP Liam Aylward is based in Kilkenny and the party needed a second candidate at the other end of the constituency. Newly elected TD for Meath East, Thomas Byrne answered the call, despite some initial hesitation.

A solicitor by profession he scored a modest 3 per cent in TNS mrbi poll but should do better on June 5th; he will have only limited opportunity to celebrate his 32nd birthday, which occurs four days before on June 1st.

Sinn Féin is also running two candidates, Kathleen Funchion, who secured a respectable 2,568 first preferences in the general election in Carlow-Kilkenny, and Louth County Councillor, Tomás Sharkey.

The sole Sinn Féin candidate John Dwyer secured 39,356 first preferences in 2004 and the party’s percentage went up to 8.68, from 5.85 in the previous poll in 1999.

John Paul Phelan has accused Raymond O’Malley, formerly a senior figure in the Irish Farmers’ Association, of “playing the race card” after the Libertas candidate told Today FM no more workers should be admitted from the 10 (mainly central and east European) accession states of the European Union, “as long as we have this rate of unemployment”.

Five years ago, Independent candidate Justin Barrett, running on an anti-immigration platform, secured 10,997 votes in Ireland

Among the trio of non-party candidates, Jim Tallon has contested 12 Dáil elections since 1981, with modest results; other Independents are Paddy Garvey and Micheál E Grealy.

And so to predictions. McGuinness must be regarded as a virtual certainty and, barring total collapse in the Fianna Fáil vote, Aylward also looks very safe. Although it would be unwise to dismiss Phelan’s chances of holding the second seat for Fine Gael, Childers clearly has the edge over him at this stage of what should be a tough campaign.