Mulcahy reflects on missing out on seat

FINE Gael got a huge vote in Clare but it still wasn’t good enough to get a coveted third seat.
While Tony Mulcahy got 6,829 first preference votes, 40 more than Timmy Dooley who took a seat, he came up short and was eliminated after the tenth count.
It was the Shannon man’s second general election campaign and while he must have been somewhat disappointed not to be making plans for life as a TD, he said he was pleased with how he polled.
“I’ve doubled my vote and I’m thrilled with it. I had a super campaign team out there. All my family, everyone canvassed and I couldn’t have asked for a bigger effort. I only came into the race about seven weeks ago, basically out of the boot of a car. I don’t have a full time office operating sending out mail to people.”
He didn’t feel that the Fine Gael vote was sufficient to win three seats, regardless of how it was managed. “We probably didn’t have the share of the vote. Say one candidate is a bit high and maybe if he was down a bit we’d be closer together. But I’d probably want to be about a thousand higher to have a fighting chance. That’s life, that’s the way it goes.”
During the course of the campaign there was anger in the Mulcahy camp about some of the efforts made by Pat Breen to garner votes in the Shannon area. However, as he faced elimination, Mr Mulcahy said it probably hadn’t affected the outcome.
“In fairness Pat didn’t canvass in Shannon, but there were posters in Shannon and a mail shot into the Shannon Electoral Area. I haven’t seen what damage that might have done, I haven’t seen tallies. I suppose during election campaigns, these things happen. If it did undermine a third seat that needs to be addressed by the party and looked at after. I would think that given the percentage we got it probably didn’t.”
He said that the importance of winning a seat needs to be kept in perspective. “What’ll probably happen some night this week is that I’ll go to bed about seven o’clock and sleep for 12 hours. I’d have a good engine too and I pick up fairly quick. I’ve a mountain of business stuff to tidy up and I’ve to get that done. Elections are elections, nobody died and we just need to get on with life.”
His party colleague on Shannon Town Council Sean McLoughlin also said that Mr Mulcahy had polled well. “Tony got over 6,000 first preferences, that’s fantastic. He doubled his vote from the last time.”
He said that he had played a big part in a successful election for Fine Gael. “Tony’s a fighter, we’re going to take two seats in the county which is very good. He got a very good vote, it proves that he’s a worker and we came from a very low base up. It’s great to see it.”