Celebrations in Shannon for new senator

IT was his 10th election but Shannon’s Tony Mulcahy has, for the first time, been elected to national office, having come up short in two general elections.

Now part of the Seanad’s Labour panel, he told The Clare Champion he still isn’t sure how being a member of the Oireachtas will impact on his life.
“We have to work around it but already, I’m a very busy councillor. I take a lot of calls every day. It’ll be a disruption; there’s no question or doubt about that. I’m not sure yet but I think there will be two nights in Dublin and the Seanad will be sitting three days.”
Some months ago, his party leader said he wanted to hold a referendum on scrapping the Seanad and since then, it has been criticised as being irrelevant, toothless and unnecessary. The new senator didn’t want to speculate on the institution’s future.
“I think if you ran a referendum tomorrow morning to abolish all the councils and abolish the Dáil, it’d probably pass. The party has indicated it wants it to be abolished and I’ll work with that. At the minute, I just want to get my feet under the table, not to think about when I’ll be coming out of it. Obviously, it would have to go to a constitutional referendum and there may have to be more than one because of the way it’s enshrined in the Constitution so we’ll just see how it plays out and I’ll work with any structure.”
He said he got stuck into the Seanad campaign very quickly after coming up short in the General Election, while he intends to run for the Dáíl.
“I was over the General Election very quick, I was back to work on Monday morning. I had my VAT returns for the business to do on Monday and Tuesday and I got calls from friends on Monday evening to see if I’d read my Facebook page. I hadn’t but I went to look at it and there were hundreds upon hundreds of messages from people wishing me well and asking would I go again. I decided that evening that not only would I go for the Senate but I’d run for the Dáil again in five years’ time. To do that, you have to work at it and the next step coming off getting nearly 7,000 votes was the Senate campaign and to see if I could get my peers to support me in that. It maintains the profile up until the next election.”
A huge effort is needed to canvass for the Seanad and he went all over the country. “It was Malin Head to Mizen Head and every bit of it. I did 12 or 13,000km over about five weeks. It was incredible. One night, I came back late; I had gone about 6.30am in the morning and I was back at 2.30am that night. Carmel said to me to take whatever time I need, that they were supporting me, to take whatever time I needed and not kill myself on the way.”
The new senator arrived back to Shannon last Friday evening and Councillor Sean McLoughlin, who was involved in the campaign, said there were great celebrations. “It was a big evening. I picked him up off the train and we were back at the town centre at around 6.40pm. There was a huge crowd there and a huge cheer when he arrived and great celebrations.”
Hopes that a second councillor from the Shannon area would be joining him in the Seanad were dashed in the early hours of Friday morning. Sixmilebridge’s John Crowe was eliminated from the running for the Industrial and Commercial panel after 33 counts.
He felt the campaign had gone quite well, even though a seat wasn’t secured. “There were 35 candidates and nine seats and I came in 10th. I was pipped for the second time but we put in as good a campaign as a I possibly could.”
Councillor Crowe said he had increased his vote compared with his last run for the Senate and that he was also pleased with this.