Election 2020: Éamon Ó Cuív (Fianna Fáil)

Éamon Ó Cuív (69), the grandson of Éamon de Valera, has proved once again to a perennial poll topper in Galway West. He has been a Fianna Fáil TD for the constituency since 1992 and has survived the party's electoral meltdown in 2011 and its poor performance this time. Ó Cuív is a former deputy leader of Fianna Fáil and has been a minister for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs from 2002 and 2011 and minister for social protection in Brian Cowan's last, ill-fated government. Socially conservative, but economically left wing, he has been one of the party's most vocal supporters of coalition (with Sinn Féin saying the party's republican values are in sympathy with those of Fianna Fáil). He is likely to be prominent in persuading the greener end of Fianna Fáil to coalese with the party, which could put him on collision course with party leader Michéal Martin and others within his party who are either against or cautious about such an arrangement.