No such thing as a safe seat – warns Ring
Áine Ryan
WINNING four seats for Fine Gael in County Mayo ‘will be very difficult’. That’s according to senior Fine Gael member and former senator, Patrick Durcan.
The practicing solicitor, and Director of Elections for Michael Ring (pictured), told The Mayo News last week: “Winning the four seats is going to be very difficult to do and depends on vote-management and other variables. There will be a very large fragmented vote out there but if that Independent and left-wing vote goes wild there is a chance.”
Mr Durcan, who has proposed Deputy Ring each time he has fought for a Dáil seat, said that the Westport candidate would be working very hard for each vote.
“We take nothing for granted because our area has its back to the sea. From Uggool [beyond Louisburgh] to Erris we are getting a very good reception. I’ve never seen such anger out there before, people are seething and are broken. The middle-class are gone,” Patrick Durcan said.
Speaking yesterday to The Mayo News, Deputy Ring – who is expected to be appointed a senior minister on Enda Kenny’s front bench – conceded he was facing ‘the stiffest competition’ in the constituency and warned there ‘was no such ting as a safe seat’.
“The suggestion of a safe seat is political trickery by the other parties. I will be depending on the work I have done for my constituents to secure my re-election. But to say I have a safe seat is wrong and like my colleagues in Fine Gael I will be fighting to retain my seat in Dáil Eireann, Michael Ring said.
He said he is facing challenges in Erris, Achill, Mulranny, Newport and even in his home town of Westport.
Snapping at his heels in this area, Ring has such competitors as Dr Jerry Cowley (Labour), Rose Conway-Walsh (Sinn Féin) and Michael Kilcoyne (Independent). This is in clear contrast to Deputy John O’Mahony’s open field in east Mayo.
“In the last two opinion polls I was forecast to get 12 per cent of the votes. Yet it will take at least 16 per cent to achieve a quota,” Michael Ring added.
Meanwhile, Enda Kenny’s brother, Cllr Henry Kenny told The Mayo News there is ‘a realistic chance of gaining the four seats’. He observed that in 2007, they were ‘very close’.
