On Saturday, February 8 the people of Kerry will go the polls to cast their votes to determine who will represent them in Dáil Éireann. To date, there are just 10 declared candidates for the five seats up for grabs with four of the outgoing five TDs seeking re-election. So who will succeed? Who will be the jubilant winners and the sore losers? What are the key issues? Where will the key battlegrounds be? Here, KillarneyToday.com takes a close look at the candidates whose names will be on the ballot paper and, although further candidates could yet emerge, this is the picture as it looks right now
Independents
With over 30,000 votes hoovered up between them in the 2016 poll, the Healy-Rae brothers pulled off the most remarkable and audacious coup in the history of Irish politics. And the fact that they have hardly taken a half day off between them since then, spending day and night – and every minute in between – tending to various tasks, would indicate that they are more than capable of doing it again.
Danny’s dramatic 11th hour entry to the fray four years ago caught everyone napping and left others with no time to react and while he won’t have the element of surprise on this occasion, he has had the opportunity to greatly enhance his political power base from his time in the Dáil and the people it put him in contact with.
Younger brother Michael is, quite simply, the most successful vote winner in the land, enjoying a remarkably high media profile, attaining celebrity status i the process, and the only question that really remains is how many first preference votes he will garner on this occasion and whether it would be easier to weigh them than count them.
The bookies seldom get it wrong and the fact that they have all but stopped short of refusing wagers on the Healy-Rae double act repeating their success of 2016 puts it all in perspective.
The simple fact of the matter is that by not running Killarney-based candidates, all the political parties have all but conceded East Kerry to the Kilgarvan dynasty and that can be taken as a true indication that they feel they simply don’t stand a chance against them.
In fact the intense speculation that a third Healy-Rae would make a bold bid to make it a hat-trick of Dáil seats – and the widespread belief that they could possibly have pulled it off – speaks volumes for the sheer strength of the family political organisation. The brothers were fast out of the block to rubbish that suggestion, however, insisting that it would take everything they had to retain the two seats they already have.
They’ll hate reading this but it’s a foregone conclusion that Michael and Danny Healy-Rae will be back in the Dáil with something to spare. The only question that remains to be answered is will their margin of victory be as massive on this occasion?
Fine Gael
Given the huge profile he enjoys in his capacity as Minister of State for Transport, Sport and Tourism, and his delivery of substantial cash windfalls for sports clubs and community projects throughout the county, it will come as a major shock if Brendan Griffin’s share of the first preference vote is not significantly higher than in 2016.
And it wasn’t bad then either with the energetic Keel man polling over 9,600 number ones to overtake veteran TD Jimmy Deenihan as the main man in Fine Gael in Kerry.
Sassy and smart, Griffin is everywhere you look throughout the constituency; opening roads, addressing conferences, promoting tourist attractions, announcing grants and, generally, bringing good news to hard-pressed communities in terms of government supports for various projects through his Minister for Fun portfolio. To suggest his seat is safe is not an overstatement by any stretch of the imagination.
Despite much speculation that the party strategists considered Listowel councillor Aoife Thornton to be the ideal candidate to join the minister on the ticket, her reluctance to commit to national politics, at this time, opened the door for the ambitious Mike Kennelly, also a councillor in Listowel.
First elected to the local authority in 2009, he is a hugely active community activist and the profile he has built up through his links with the GAA will certainly stand to him when he’s out and about knocking on doors.
Whether he is strong enough to challenge for a seat will depend on a number of factors, chief of which will be if Brendan Griffin can reach a quota in or very close to the first count and his surplus and transfers stay blue. The general consensus is that there will be a ferocious battle for the final seat and, if everything goes his way, Kennelly could be in there with a chance, albeit an outside one.
He will reach out to party supporters in the traditional Fine Gael stronghold where Jimmy Deenihan was always returned with ease in every election, bar the last one and Cllr Kennelly will be hoping that Deenihan’s supporters will row in behind him this time.
Fianna Fail
It remains unclear just how happy – or otherwise – outgoing TD John Brassil felt when another candidate from the north of the county was added to the ticket with Cllr Norma Foley joining Cllr Norma Moriarty on the ballot paper and significantly boosting the party’s gender balance obligations in the process.
Brassil was first elected to the Dáil in 2016 after the party had spent a prolonged period in the sin bin post economic bust. He polled just over 8,000 first preferences last time out – over 5,000 votes shy of a quota – and he was pushed to the limit by Fine Gael’s Jimmy Deenihan before being elected on the fifth count. It’s hardly safe seat territory but the Ballyheigue pharmacist will be hoping his term in the corridors of power will have significantly boosted his profile.
Cllr Norma Moriarty, a teacher from Waterville, is back on the ticket having polled a very creditable 4,348 in 2016 and she will be hoping her work on Kerry County Council since then will boost her performance this time and give her a shout a seat. She has south west Kerry very much to herself once again and the word is she has a formidable campaign team to call on to boost her presence on the doorsteps.
Although it had been half expected, the addition Cllr Norma Foley caught some by surprise – including many in her own party – with FF party strategists believing she could capitalise on the withdrawal, for personal reasons, of Toireasa Ferris in their home town of Tralee.
A teacher and the daughter of former TD Denis Foley, she was an impressive poll topper in the local elections last May and she polled just short of 5,000 first preferences, as a far less experienced candidate, in the 2007 general election.
What is most surprising of all was the bizarre reluctance of Fianna Fail to run a candidate in Killarney and East Kerry – a traditional FF stronghold dominated for years by the late John O’Leary and where current Mayor of Kerry, Cllr Niall Kelleher, was straining at the leash for the nod – but it appears that the party is weakly waving the white handkerchief in the county’s second most populous area which is now very much Healy-Rae country.
Whether that decision will be regretted remains to be seen but it will be interesting to see if Deputy Brassil or any of the two Normas can get any sort of decent support in the Killarney Municipal District area apart, of course, from the traditional party faithful.
The party is confident of winning a second seat but not many others would share that optimism and while one seat is a certainty, the big question is who will fill it?
Sinn Fein
When Martin Ferris announced his intention to take his foot of the political pedal and retire from national politics, it was no real problem for Sinn Fein given that his politically astute and high-profile daughter, Toiréasa, was on standby to step into the fray. It was very much an open and closed succession story until circumstances changed and Toiréasa stepped aside from political life for personal reasons.
That came as a major blow to the party that has held a Dáil seat in Kerry since 2002 but, even then, they didn’t have too far to look to determine who would carry the torch in the 20202 Election.
Into the breach stepped Cllr Pa Daly, a clever and experienced campaigner who works as a solicitor and is true to the ideals of the party he represents. A sight worry for Daly and his party is that he was almost 1,000 votes behind Fianna Fail’s Norma Foley in the local elections last May and he had to wait until the 12th count to be elected but he will be hoping that the faithful Ferris vote will come his way.
Transfers could be an issue for Sinn Fein so Cllr Daly will be hoping to be right up there after the first count.
Both Martin and Toiréasa Ferris are actively canvassing with and for Cllr Daly, with John Buckley and co knocking on doors in Killarney, and even though Fianna Fail are specifically targeting for the Sinn Fein seat – and they are making no secret of that – the party remains very strong in Tralee and North Kerry in particular. It might be tight, it might be close, it could well be squeaky bum time but it will still be a surprise if Pa Daly doesn’t make it to the Dáil at his first attempt.
Green Party
Given that the first ever Green Party representative elected in Ireland was in Kerry, when Marcus Counihan won a seat on Killarney Urban District Council in 1985, one would have assumed they could have built on that success. But that task proved beyond them.
Counihan vacated the seat for work reasons and what followed was a fumbling, almost farcical co-option process, like a scene from Finnegan’s Ball, with one aspiring councillor stepping in and stepping out again before another was lined up to have a go at what appeared like a game of political musical chairs.
A running joke in the town hall chambers at the time was that the only requirement to be in contention to have a spin on the Green seat in the town hall might well have been that the aspiring candidate wore cheesecloth shirts and corduroy trousers and owned at least one Joni Mitchell LP.
With an occasional exception, it has been a sorry tale of woe for the Greens in Kerry since the first breakthrough but Cleo Murphy – their candidate for February 8 – offers some hope. Articulate, driven and committed, the former journalist from Kenmare polled a respectable 691 first preferences in the local elections last May and she certainly has the capabilities to improve her profile for future contests and get her party back on the map countywide.
Aontú
Sonny Foran was selected as the Aontú candidate in October and he has hit the ground running on the campaign trail. He polled 800 first preference voted in May’s local elections – despite a short three-week campaign – and that has given him great confidence.
The Causeway man – who has started a GoFundMe appeal to help finance his campaign – is very active in the community and he is very highly regarded in his home pace but while he is likely to struggle to make an impact outside of his North Kerry locality, he will relish the opportunity to test himself – and Aontú – in a general election.
Labour
At the time of going to print, it looks very much like, for the first time since 1933, the Labour Party will be without a candidate on the ballot paper. And that is quite astonishing given that it’s the party that gave us Dick Spring and Michael Moynihan, two exceptionally powerful parliamentarians who were considered political royalty during their respective careers.
That outgoing TD Arthur Spring could manage just six per cent of the vote in the 2016 poll was a bitter pill for Labour to swallow and it was the prompt the Tralee man needed to exit through the political doorway to concentrate on his business dealings.
Huge pressure had come on Tralee councillor Terry O’Brien to allow his name to go forward but he has declined while former senator Marie Moloney, a candidate in the Killarney Municipal District, also ruled it out.
Ben Slimm in Tralee and Luke Crowley Holland in Kenmare were the only other Labour candidates to contest the Kerry County Council elections and the fact that, between them, they failed to muster 800 votes on that occasion, did not exactly inspire confidence.
Barring the highly unlikely emergence of a surprise candidate, it will be a long road back for the red rose brigade.
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