McGuire comes out on top in battle with FG colleague Hyland

Hyland loses nomination as West Mayo political area begins to take shape


Neill O’Neill

THE cut throat world of politics runs even in local contests, as fancied Westport Town Councillor Christy Hyland found out the hard way on Sunday when he failed to secure a Fine Gael nomination for the new West Mayo Municipal District for the local elections in 2014.
The party will run five candidates in the area, three sitting councillors - Gerry Coyle, Austin Francis O’Malley and Johno O’Malley, while newcomer Breege Grealis will join the ticket for the Achill area, and will be joined by Westport Town Councillor Tereasa McGuire.
It was Cllr McGuire’s third time to seek the nomination for county council elections.
With the directive from party headquarters stating that there should be ‘one, and one only’, candidate from the Westport Town Branch, the only real contest of the selection convention was a straight shootout between fellow town councillors Christy Hyland and Tereasa McGuire.
With the other candidates secure in their nominations, delegates from branches outside of Westport were free to vote for whomever they pleased, and Tereasa McGuire secured 58 votes to Christy Hyland’s 50, while Gerry Coyle got 17, Austin Francis O’Malley 21, Johno O’Malley 20 and Breege Grealis 9. Had every candidate needed to secure votes to be assured of their place on the ticket, the outcome would likely have been much different, many party observers felt.
The nomination of Tereasa McGuire makes her the only sitting councillor based in Westport Town that, to date, will be contesting next year’s local elections. She has broken the trend of a succession of retirement announcements, which came in recent weeks from County Councillors Peter Flynn and Margaret Adams (also a town councillor) Martin Keane, Myles Staunton and Ollie Gannon.
Cathaoirleach of Westport Town Council, Michael McLaughlin, declared four years ago that he would not seek reelection in 2014, while Cllr Brendan Mulroy is seeking the Fianna FΡil party nomination for the West Mayo area. That convention is expected to be held in January, and is also being fiercely contested. It too, promises to be an intense political, and potentially career ending battle, with Declan Dever, Joan Geraghty and Tommie Duggan also seeking the nomination in Westport.
Currently, Fianna FΡil party headquarters are calling for only one candidate to run in Westport Town, but the local party members are strongly advocating that this be increased to two, and for another candidate to also run in the Louisburgh area. Tommy Joe Jennings has already sought that nomination, and is expected to be on the ballot paper next summer.
The overall strategy for West Mayo Fianna FΡil, as proposed by the organisation on the ground, is for one candidate in Belmullet, one in Achill, two in Westport and the surrounding districts and one in Louisburgh. However, the party Constituencies Committee, headed up by Deputy Michael Moynihan, disagree, and want just one candidate in Westport.
There have been no murmurs from the Labour Party whatsoever to date, in the proposed new district, but as a coalition partner in Government, they would be expected to run a candidate. Current Labour Westport Town Councillor, Keith Martin, has not made any formal declaration of intent to seek a seat, while the party hierarchy will also be aware of the presence in the new Municipal District of former TD, Dr Jerry Cowley.


Fine Gael could yet open door for Hyland 

Defeated candidate also considers running as an Independent

Neill O’Neill

WESTPORT Town Councillor Christy Hyland is down but not out following his failure to secure a nomination at Sunday’s Fine Gael selection convention for the new West Mayo Municipal District in the 2014 local elections.
Speaking to The Mayo News, yesterday (Monday) the first term public representative said that there are options open to him, and he will not rule out running as an independent candidate. It was also being suggested by his supporters in the aftermath of his defeat in Knockranny House Hotel on Sunday, that following his strong showing in the voting at convention, and owing to his strong support in Westport town, that the Fine Gael headquarters could yet direct Cllr Hyland be placed on the ticket.
This will raise a few eyebrows in the Fine Gael ranks across the West Mayo area, and among those selected to go through to run for election next May, but The Mayo News understands that it is a very real possibility, and is being actively considered, at this time.
Cllr Hyland said yesterday that he knew absolutely nothing of this, but was ruling nothing in or out.

Loyalty
“At this stage I’m considering my options,” he said. “Now is a time for reflection, but I’m certainly not going to rule it out [running as an Independent]. I topped the Fine Gael vote at the last local elections, in my first time running and with strong candidates in the field of 18, and was given a huge mandate by the people of Westport to represent them. Those who voted for me had that taken away on Sunday, not by the electorate, but by some members of the Fine Gael party, a party I have been loyal to and supported unconditionally.
“I ran my campaign to have my name put forward for the next local elections with honesty, integrity and loyalty, but some people I spoke to obviously weren’t working from the same script and were not honest with me when pledging votes. It seems there were people with different agendas to me but I, nor anybody belonging to me, were ever into craw thumping and I respected the boundaries between areas and never went into the strongholds of other candidates looking for delegate votes.”

System flawed
Cllr Hyland can consider himself to have done very well at the convention, securing 50 of what he calls ‘honest’ votes. He says he is not angry or bitter at the outcome, but adds that it is ‘hard to get his head around the system’.
“I’ve always been honest and I’ll be honest now. In a way I consider that it is a weight lifted off my shoulders, but I am disappointed because I’ve worked hard and had the pledge of more votes than I received.”
The system of selecting the candidates followed a geographic directive from Fine Gael HQ, which essentially facilitated the sitting county councillors Gerry Coyle in Erris, John O’Malley in Kilmeena and Austin Francis O’Malley in Louisburgh to be automatically selected, along with the one candidate from the Achill area - Breege Grealis, after another - Joe Fadian - had earlier withdrawn from the contest.
This meant that while Tereasa McGuire and Christy Hyland were in a battle for their political lives, the other candidates did not need any votes.

Anger
A post-mortem being undertaken in Knockranny by supporters from Christy Hyland’s camp concluded that the haemhorraging of votes away from other candidates, who did not need them, by members of their local area clubs outside of Westport, had worked against their man, but Christy himself only had words of good luck to the other candidates.
One disgruntled follower said he had lost faith in politics after seeing what had transpired and would never again vote for a Fine Gael councillor, while also querying why party members from outside the Westport area were allowed to influence the selection of the town’s candidate.
One source however, told The Mayo News, that the party are interested in winning five of the seven seats that will be contested in the 2014 elections in the West Mayo Municipal District, and Cllr Hyland could yet find his name on the ballot paper next summer.