Festering row over Mayo council seat co-option is coming to a head

by Dr. Richard Martin

Mark Duffy was elected to the Labour panel of the Senate on February 2 last.

As he was one of the 30 councillors elected to Mayo County Council last June, a vacancy has been created.

Duffy was elected as an independent last year, not as a member of any party.

But shortly after the council elections, he joined Fine Gael and represented them in the general election in November.

He acquitted himself well, but FG made a serious error in judgement in running four candidates. There was only room for three FG candidates in such a competitive arena.

He failed to be elected but straight away got on the campaign trail for the Senate.

This time he got it right and was elected comfortably.

He is the only Mayo member of the entire senate.

Ballina is now represented in the Oireachtas by a senior minister in Dara Calleary, a leading member of SF in Rose Conway-Walsh and Senator Mark Duffy from FG.

In contrast Castlebar only has one representative in the Oireachtas – Minister of State Alan Dillon.

I was delighted when I heard Mark Duffy was elected. I like to see people from the county doing well and even more so because this man has political talent.

He can speak. He looks good and he has a brain.

We need people with ability to advocate our case in the national chamber.

The Storm Éowyn clean-up will cost €250 million. It devastated the west/northwest.

The energy infrastructure needs a dramatic overhaul.

In the era of climate change, Storm Éowyn is not an aberration.

It is a harbinger of more potent and destructive storms to come.

We are seeing more storms with greater intensity all the time now.

Strong politics is needed to fight for the west.

Now that he is elected there is a vacancy. So, who gets his seat?

Mark Duffy decides. No-one else.

There are currently three women in the council chamber.

I’d like to see a woman nominated and I’m sure there are plenty of competent, intelligent women in Ballina who could make a valuable contribution to the chamber.

Mark will obviously anoint a successor who’s loyal to him.

I’m sure he will choose a worthy successor.

He will be opening an office in Ballina in the coming weeks and having a councillor who is working with him along with the valuable discretionary funding is ideal.

The bottom line is this: If he has a constituency office open and does the bread-and-butter work on the ground with a loyal ally, he’s going to be elected in the next GE.

We all saw how Alan Dillon swept the boards locally in the last GE simply on account of running a streamlined, efficient, effective constituency office. That’s how you get yourself elected.

In less than a year Duffy has gone from being a poll topping independent councillor to senator with his own office and a loyal ally as a councillor.

In due course the loyal ally will inevitably join FG and there's nothing any of the independent grouping can do about it in the council.

It’s democracy.

Micheal Kilcoyne will likely complain but he had no problem bringing an FF elected councillor to his own independent group.

It’s politics, baby!

Paul Lawless was elected to the Dáil in 2024. His sister, who lives in Galway, was his replacement.

The FF and FG councillors respected the democratic process and didn’t try and interfere. Nor should they.

The issue with the Duffy replacement is this. If and when the Duffy replacement inevitably joins the FG party, it will leave the independent grouping with nine councillors.

They need 10 to form a technical group. It messes up Kilcoyne's arithmetic and plans completely and it's doubtful another FF councillor will cross the room and join him to remedy the situation.

It’s said that there can never be more than two TDs past Nephin.

Currently we have two and they are both fixed, immutable and going nowhere.

It’s early doors but Duffy is on course to join the duo and make it a trio.

At any rate he's a solid ante post bet for the next GE. It's never too far away.

The tick tock of the clock only goes in one direction. Forward not backwards.

With every tick and every tock, we get further from the last GE and closer to the next one.

In 2029 it’s very likely that there will be three TDs who reside north of Nephin.

Off the topic and on the topic.

Lisa Chambers decided to leave active politics after the last GE. Over a 10-year period she was a councillor, TD and Senator. Not bad going.

She’s now moved into a career outside of politics and was recently appointed the Director of Public Affairs at Consello.

Consello is a major international advisory and investing platform started by Declan Kelly from Tipperary.

I’m delighted for her. We keep producing people in Castlebar who reach the top across corporate Ireland.

We all deserve a break now and then. One door closes another one opens.

Mark agus Lisa, comhghairdeas libh beirt.