EDITORIAL: Battle time for five Mayo seats

With a growing consensus that we are a mere ten weeks out from the next general election, the dust is starting to settle on what the likely field will be. It will be a tough battle for the five Mayo Dáil seats, but the old certainty of a three-two split between the erstwhile foes – and now close allies – will count for nought.
Fianna Fáil, once dominant, will be content to salvage two seats, with a two candidate strategy of outgoing TD, Dara Calleary, and Senator Lisa Chambers. Although four names will go before the selection convention next Friday night (both Councillors Damien Ryan of Ballinrobe and Brendan Mulroy of Westport having secured nomination), party headquarters will likely rule on a two-name ticket.
In any event, the party will need to up its game considerably if it is to avoid its dismal showing of four years ago. In that contest, Fianna Fáil trailed in 10,000 votes behind the Fine Gael total. Even worse, Michael Ring came within a whisper of equalling the combined vote of Calleary and Chambers. As did Rose Conway Walsh of Sinn Féin.
This time, the omens are a little better. It’s now a five seater. Calleary has since been elevated to Cabinet table status. Chambers polled a respectable 44,000 first preferences in the European elections. She is an odds-on certainty to be awarded a ministerial role should the coalition be returned, a benefit which any savvy Mayo voter must reflect on.
Add to that the disruption caused to voting patterns by the decision of Michael Ring to retire from national politics. That gaping hole in Fine Gael fortunes created by his absence will not easily be bridged. Fine Gael needs a big name if it is to fill the Ring shoes, and thus far, the search has not revealed any standout names. Neither Alma Gallagher in Claremorris or Ciara Keogh in Westport have the necessary road miles on the clock to challenge for that vacancy. The name of Martina Jennings, CEO of the Mayo Roscommon Hospice, has been floated and, ideal as she might be, there has been no white smoke to signal her desire for a career in public life.
All of which leads back to the whispered suggestion that Maria Walsh might be enticed – or leaned on, might be a better phrase – to leave her job in Brussels and, in the party interest, run for the Dáil. It is not something which the recently re-elected MEP would joyfully accept, but Maria might learn that, in politics, the party giveth and the party taketh away.
Assuming that Fine Gael, optimistic of taking three seats, goes for a three-candidate team, Alan Dillon will be joined by a Ballina based nominee. The likely choice will fall between John O’Hara, the proven vote getter from Bonniconlon, and former TD and Senator, Michelle Mulhern, a politician for whom the ball has never bounced too kindly. Four years ago, she was ahead of her colleague Alan Dillon right down to the final count, when the distribution of Saoirse McHugh’s votes nudged him ahead of Mulhern to take the last seat.
Sinn Féin, meanwhile, will have no intention of loosening its grip on the seat won so spectacularly by Rose Conway Walsh in 2020. Since then, she has been appointed to a key front bench position and has proved herself an able and competent voice both in the chamber and on the airwaves. Fears that the tide might be ebbing on Sinn Féin nationally may favour a strategy of adding Gerry Murray of Charlestown, a solid electoral performer, the better to secure the Mayo seat.
But there will be others who fancy their chances of a crack at the main prize. The surge of support for Independent candidates has encouraged the Robeen councillor, Patsy O’Brien, to throw his hat in the ring, and the word on the ground is that he is wasting no time in scouring the countryside on an intense canvas. What might, however, work against him would be, as hinted, his neighbour Maria Walsh returning to wear the Fine Gael shirt.
Mark Duffy in Ballina remains a dark horse of formidable electoral popularity, while the anti-immigrant activist, Stephen Kerr, who surprised many in the recent local elections, will seek to capitalise on what some regard as strong latent support for his viewpoint.