This article is from page 6 of the 2014-05-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
FIANNA FÁIL has returned to party political dominance in Clare County Council and with the support of the three Independent councillors of Fianna Fáil origin, the party could take control of the chamber.
Councillors Michael Begley (Killaloe), Cllr James Breen (Ennis) and Cllr PJ Ryan (Shannon) are well positioned to be king-makers, or in this case mayor-makers, in the new 28 seat council.
Although the party increased its overall first preference vote by just .2 per cent, its representation on Clare County Council has increased from 34.4 per cent to 42.8 per cent. In the 2009 local election Fianna Fáil won 11 seats in a 32 member council. In 2014 the number increased to 12 in a 28 seat council.
Director of Elections for the party in Clare Gerry Reidy believes with a bit more vote management the party may have even secured two more seats and brought the number to one seat short of an overall majority.
“We had great potential to get two more seats. If we had managed the vote that Cathal [Crowe] got better, and he got an amount of that from the Cratloe area, we could have got in Pat O’Gorman because he was only beaten by a short margin of votes,” he said.
“Cathal is a brilliant campaigner, and it is only afterwards when you see the benefit of his work you think we might have had a different conversation about some of these places.”
The Fianna Fáil man also questions how the party did not win a seat in Kilkee and were beaten to that seat by a Government councillor.
“There is a lot of controversy in Kilkee over the damage the storms have done and Pat Keane would have highlighted constantly, but you have the situation where the councillor that was in the Government Party got in, and the councillor in opposition did not.”
While congratulating the 12 Fianna Fáil councillors, Mr Reidy said he was also aware of those that were not elected across all parties and none, and was aware of how difficult that was on them and their families.
The party lost just two casualties in the election – Cllr Brian Meaney who was elected a Green Party councillor in 2009 but transferred to Fianna Fáíl in April 2013.
Cllr Pat Keane also lost his seat in the new West Clare Electoral Area.