Tag Archives: Fine Gael

Seven out of the eight Clare County Councillors elected to the Ennis area will hold the title of mayor over the coming five years, it emerged this week. Fine Gael’s John Crowe, from the Shannon Municipal District, was elected Clare’s first citizen on Friday, after days of negotiations between his party, Fianna Fáil and the technical group made up of independents and the local authority’s only Sinn Féin member. The Sixmilebridge man will be the only Fine Gael mayor of Clare during this council term. However, at Tuesday’s meeting of the Ennis Municipal District, the only municipal area where the title of the chairperson is ‘mayor’, Fine Gael’s Johnny Flynn was elected as Mayor of Ennis. This is due to the fact that Ennis has a population in excess of 20,000. His fellow Ennis councillors, Independent James Breen and Fianna Fáil’s Tom McNamara, will both hold the county’s first-citizen role during this five-year term. The Mayor of Ennis position will …

A negotiating team representing the political parties and independents on the new 28-member Clare County Council will meet for the eighth time this Wednesday evening to try to broker an agreement on the rotation of  the Mayor of Clare position. The situation must be resolved in this for the annual general meeting of the council on this Friday afternoon. In the past, the post of Cathaoirleach of Clare County Council was retained within the majority party but for the past decade or so, the position [now mayor] has rotated among parties and independents. The outgoing mayor, Joe Arkins lost his seat in the recent local elections, an outcome that was due in no small measure to the redrawing of the electoral areas. It is understood that Fianna Fáil will have two terms  and at the crux of the matter is how to strike a balance of sharing the role of mayor between the seven independent, joined with the one Sinn Féin councillor, …

FINE Gael got 40% of the vote in Killaloe but ended up with just two councillors in the six-seat electoral area, despite one of its candidates topping the poll. So successful was Joe Cooney in the area that he almost doubled the quota on the first count. Indeed, his surplus was larger than the first preference votes of each of his party colleagues in the area, outgoing Mayor of Clare Joe Arkins and sitting councillor Pat Burke. The distribution of that surplus, however, did not go where party officials might have liked. Half went across to the four Fianna Fáil candidates and just over a quarter (390) went to his party colleagues. According to Jim McMahon, Munster organiser for Fine Gael, the party had a strategy in the electoral area but it didn’t work. “Joe Cooney is someone who, in the last number of elections, has got a very big vote, Joe Cooney’s vote, if you look where his vote …

ELECTED for another five years late this evening, Fine Gael’s Gabriel Keating said his vote climbed during the day like a jumbo jet. He said he was always confident. “I had the work done and I felt it would come right. My vote this morning was low, it was two or three hundred behind some of the lads that I thought would get there, but it climbed and climbed and climbed.” It was a very different campaign to 2009, he claimed. “It was a different campaign because five years ago I was really taking the seat that had been held by Madeline Taylor Quinn. This time we had two candidates, an ex Fine Gael and a Fine Gael candidate from Kilrush. But I had great support, great canvassers with me. “As the day went on I was climbing, it (his vote) was like a 747 going up all the time,” he added.  

In the Killaloe area, Joe Cooney of Fine Gael , as expected, will be comfortably elected, as will Independent Michael Begley.  Next home will be Tony O Brien, Fianna Fail and Pat Hayes of Fianna Fail. At this stage, it appears that outgoung Mayor of Clare Joe Arkins of Fine Gael will have a fight on his hands to retain his seat. Liam Wiley, Fianna Fail and Pat Burke of Fine Gael are among those who will be in contention for the remaining seats. [doptg id=”14″]

Coming up to 11.30a.m. at the count centre in Treacy’s West county Hotel, from tallies in the Ennis area, it would appear that James Breen, independent and Johnny Flynn, Fine Gael are on their way to taking seats. Also looking well at this stage are Tom Mc Namara, Fianna Fail, and Pat Daly, Fianna Fail. In the European elections, Brian Crowley, Fianna Fail, is cleaning up in Clare. [doptg id=”13″]

FIVE years ago, Fianna Fáil was in meltdown and the grassroots membership in Clare in open revolt. Bedevilled by ongoing controversy and the country in financial crisis, such political embarrassment was always going to stimulate a ballot box backlash, and it did. The political turmoil presented a window of opportunity for Fine Gael to make political gains, and they did. For the first time since the formation of the state, Fine Gael became the controlling party in Clare County Council holding 12 of the 32 seats, one more then their long-standing rivals. Fianna Fáil paid a high price for the economic hardship they foisted on the nation through poor judgement calls and downright bad management. Their vote in Clare dropped to an all-time low of just 35.5%, down almost 15% from the 1999 elections. Conversely, Fine Gael’s stock rose. Their first preference vote jumped from 26.66% in 1999, when they held eight seats, to the 2009 level of 34.2%. Clare’s …

By Dan Danaher THE four main political parties have been accused of wasting hundreds of thousands of euro on electioneering for European elections, which would be better spent on delivering community projects throughout Clare. That’s the verdict of Richard Cahill, who entered the Euro South race on Monday, just before the close of nominations, to become the only new Clare candidate in this constituency. The Sixmilebridge community activist, who doesn’t have any money to spend on a traditional campaign, believes the main parties – Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin – are squandering money on posters, election fliers and advertising, while some people are struggling to put food on the table. “There are people who are wondering where they are going to get food to feed their family. Political representatives are spending hundreds of thousands of euro on posters and election literature. They are saying they are true representatives; they must be joking. This type of spending is …