Mark Duffy delighted to be the only Mayo representative elected to Seanad

A BALLINA councillor who was elected to Seanad Éireann over the weekend says he will use his position to fight for ‘positive discrimination’ when it comes to developing infrastructure in Mayo.

Fine Gael’s Cllr Mark Duffy was elected to the Labour vocational panel of the Upper House of the Oireachtas. He will be the only elected Mayo-based senator to sit in the Seanad when it convenes next week.

The former Independent councillor, who is also a former Mayor of Ballina, ran for Fine Gael in November’s general election but he narrowly missed out on winning a seat.

He was one of 19 candidates standing for the Seanad’s Labour panel, where eleven seats were up for grabs.

The Labour panel count started on Saturday evening, with Duffy securing 76,000 votes after the first count and putting him 19,751 votes short of the quota of 95,751. He had to wait until the 13th count on Sunday morning to be elected, when transfers from eliminated party colleague Leonora Carey helped him exceed the quota.

Speaking to The Mayo News, Cllr Duffy said he was delighted to be elected and will work hard to work on policies to deliver for the county.

“It is a privilege to be Mayo’s only elected representative in the Seanad, and my motivation is to be in a position to be as effective as possible to deliver for Co Mayo. Whether that route was through the Dáil or the Senate, I wanted to be in a position to do whatever it takes to get to positions to influence positive change for Mayo.

“Ireland is one of the most centralised countries in the OECD. Decision-making is done through the Oireachtas. There are obviously 60 senators with 170 TDs, so the decision-making is made centrally in Dublin. The policies and the systems are created there which dictate a lot of what we do on the ground in communities across the county, so a lot can be achieved.

“It all boils down to the person who is willing to work and fight to make sure that priorities and projects are included and represented, and that is what I will do for Co Mayo. You can do a lot from the Senate… from the policy side. In rural Ireland, we need policies that positively discriminate [in rural Ireland’s favour] to make sure we are getting the investment in infrastructure, and the delivery of housing and the improvements to local government. They are things I will be fighting for,” he said.

‘It was intense’

This is the third election Duffy has fought in less than 12 months. Before he contested the general election for Fine Gael in November, he won a seat as an Independent on Mayo County Council in last June’s local elections.

Of the Seanad’s 60 members, 49 are elected and eleven are nominated by the Taoiseach. Of the 49 elected members, 43 are elected from panels of candidates representing specified vocational interests. The remaining six members are elected by university graduates of certain universities.

Members of the incoming Dáil, members of the outgoing Seanad and members of county councils and city councils are all eligible to vote in the Seanad elections and for counting purposes each vote is multiplied by 1,000.

Cllr Duffy said that for the last six weeks, he has been travelling the country hoping to get the support of party colleagues. He added that he feels his hard work paid off, as he was the highest-placed Fine Gael candidate after the first count.

“Being new to the Fine Gael party, it was a good exercise in meeting colleagues right across the country. It was different from local and Dáíl elections, as it is not as public and there were a lot of one-to-one meetings. It was intense.

“I worked really hard for it. I was on the road day and night, but I also had great support from [retired former senator] Paddy Bourke and [retired former TD and minister] Michael Ring. I was very appreciative of their support and the councillors in Mayo. It was a great foundation to build on,” he commented.

As a newly elected senator, Cllr Duffy will have to relinquish his seat on Mayo County Council, which will result in a new person being co-opted onto the council. Cllr Duffy said he will have a role in who replaces him, and he will be sitting down with the party in Ballina to decide who will be best placed to represent the people of the town.