South Mayo ‘isolated’ by constituency partition

LOOKING FOR MAYO VOTES Fianna FΡil’s two candidates in the Galway West constituency, Éamon Ó Cuív, TD, and Cllr Olllie Crowe, handing in their nomination papers to returning officer, Marian Chambers-Higgins last week.

Anton McNulty

People in the part of south Mayo which remains in the Galway West constituency for General Election 2020 feel ‘isolated’ in political terms, according to a local councillor.
Following the recommendation of the constituency commission report in 2017, the area around Ballinrobe town, Roundfort and Garrymore returned to the Mayo constituency, having been in the Galway West constituency for the 2016 General Election. However, a large area south of Ballinrobe including The Neale, Kilmaine, Shrule, Cross, Glencorribe and Kilroe remain in Galway West.
Ballinrobe-based Fine Gael councillor, Michael Burke said that people in Ballinrobe were delighted to be back in Mayo but there was a different story for a lot of people still in the Galway West constituency.
“There are people who do feel a bit isolated to say the least,” he told The Mayo News. “Even if they were in with Galway East there might be a greater connection … it does not seem right.
“People would be happier in the Mayo constituency and represented by the four Mayo representatives and not hived off to Galway. I am sure there will be another [constituency] review after the election but until then there is nothing we can do about it.”
In the 2016 General Election, former Mayo TD, John O’Mahony ran in Galway West but missed out in a seat and this time there is no Mayo-based candidate among the 15 candidates vying for five seats.
Fianna FΡil councillor Damien Ryan told The Mayo News that because party colleague Éamon Ó Cuív lives just five miles from the Mayo border, he is seen by many people as a local TD.
“Listening to people on the ground they would not recognise most of the rest of the candidates but they would have a certain bond with Ó Cuív who had clinics in Cong before any boundary changes.”
Cllr Ryan said that the boundary changes means that he has to canvass for Lisa Chambers on one side and Éamon Ó Cuív on the other and quipped that he has to be mindful of where the boundary starts and ends.
“Mayo should have been left as it was but we have to make the most of the hand we were given,” he concluded.