East and south Mayo voters need to take steps to ensure election of 'own TD'
The reconfiguration by the Independent Electoral Commission of the Mayo constituency for the purposes of the next general election has, understandably so, led to much speculation and debate.
It is a positive that the county’s boundary is no longer breached with the return of a significant area of south Mayo, including the townlands of The Neale, Cong, Glencorrib and Shrule, to their own territory.
As Mayo TD Michael Ring recently put it during an interview on RTÉ Radio One, Mayo people don’t have a natural affinity when it comes to voting for politicians other than their own.
He was not being disrespectful in any way, just pointing out the nonsense of members of the electorate from one county being expected to vote for candidates in another county.
While this has not been addressed completely by the commission as far as rest of the nation is concerned, at least it has highlighted the need to eliminate the breaching of county boundaries once and for all.
After all, people are very parochial when it comes to election time and have a long tradition of being so, albeit some examples to the contrary being recorded over the years.
When all is said and done, the return of 5,600 members of the electorate to Mayo is unlikely to have a major impact on the existing landscape because, when recent voting patterns are taken into account, only around 3,400 will actually turn out on the day of an election to cast their franchise.
What is very significant, however, is the fact Mayo has been allocated a fifth seat as part of the restoration of Mayo as a full constituency in its own right.
This will force the three main political parties to re-think their strategies but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, in particular, may not be necessarily tempted into running their third candidate in east and south Mayo because it happens to look like the most attractive option to do so.
From Fine Gael’s perspective, for example, it would probably suit them better to share out south and east Mayo between outgoing TDs Alan Dillon and Michael Ring and field a third candidate in the town of Ballina.
Fianna Fáil already has a candidate in Ballina, namely outgoing Minister of State Dara Calleary.
What it must ensure is that it has a strong candidate in Castlebar and this is not as straightforward as it seems due to Senator Lisa Chambers’ interest in contesting next year’s European Parliament election, which comes before the next general election.
It is unthinkable that Fianna Fáil would not have a candidate in the county town and that scenario would be inevitable in the event of Senator Chambers securing a seat in Brussels.
Sinn Féin, which is expected to run Charlestown County Councillor Gerry Murray as its east Mayo-based candidate, will be convinced it can win two seats in Mayo now, but the party still has much to consider, thus leading to renewed speculation of Joe Brolly being on the ticket.
So if east and south Mayo want a TD of their own, then perhaps they need to take their own steps rather than leaving it to the political parties to do so.
A ‘Vote for your own TD’ would be a very attractive campaign if the right non-party candidate can be identified.
Why not?
It’s worth a try in this age of changing political thinking.