Race for Dáil hots up locally
The build-up to a general election continues to gather pace locally, with both Fine Gael Cllr John Naughten (Roscommon/Galway) and former councillor Louise Heavin (Longford/Westmeath), now joining the race for the Dáil.
The shock decision of former councillor and Athlone Mayor, Louise Heavin, to resign from the Green Party in the past week and contest the upcoming election as an Independent candidate is set to leave the Greens scrambling to find an alternative candidate.
Following what she described as a “period of reflection over the summer” Heavin, who ran in the last general election for the party, said she had conveyed her decision to party leader, Roderic O'Gorman, and the local Green Party organisation.
She stressed there was “no ill-will” as a result of her decision, either at local or national level.
Speaking to the Westmeath Independent, the local architect said she felt that, during her period as a Green Party councillor representing Athlone, many “inaccurate assumptions” had been made about what she stood for. “I did a good bit of thinking over the summer and I decided to set my own narrative,” she said.
She said she felt her continued membership of the Green Party would not be “useful” to her as it would “put a label on me and barriers in front of me” that would not serve her well in the long-term.
As a practising architect, Louise Heavin, says housing will be her “main focus” as an Independent candidate. “It was always my main focus but I feel this was completely lost with all the other assumptions that were being made around the Green message,” she said.
While conceding that she faces an uphill battle to secure a seat as an Independent, she says she cannot let the recent local elections, where she secured just 364 first-preference votes, affect her bid for a Dáil seat.
In the Roscommon-Galway constituency, the Naughten name is set to remain on the ballot paper also following the successful selection of Cllr John Naughten as one of two candidates at the Fine Gael selection convention for the constituency last week.
Cllr Naughten, a brother of sitting TD Independent Denis Naughten, who is stepping down, was selected by a narrow margin of just ten votes in a head-to-head contest with Ballinasloe-based Senator Aisling Dolan, who also put her name before the convention. She secured 113 votes to 123 for Cllr Naughten, who has been a member of Roscommon County Council for more than two decades.
The Drum-based councillor will be joined on the party ticket by newcomer, Dympna Darcy Finn, who hails from Arigna, in north Roscommon, and who came to prominence at the June local elections when she narrowly lost out on winning a council seat for Fine Gael in the Boyle district.
Party headquarters had stipulated that two candidates be selected, representing the north and south of the constituency. As Dympna Darcy Finn was the sole candidate from the north of the constituency to go before convention she was ratified without a vote.
Cllr Naughten paid tribute to his defeated rival at the convention, Senator Aisling Dolan and acknowledged the “huge amount of investment” she has brought into the constituency in her capacity as a Senator.
In a social media post, Senator Dolan wished both Cllr Naughten and Dympna Darcy Finn “the best in the time ahead” and made a pledge to her supporters that she would continue to work “as your Senator in the West.”
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin also formally ratified sitting TD Claire Kerrane as the party’s sole general election candidate at a convention in Hannon’s Hotel in Roscommon town. A native of Tibohine, close to the Leitrim/Mayo border, she was first elected to the Dail in 2020.
Fianna Fáil is still to hold a selection convention for Roscommon Galway and it is widely expected to be a three-way contest between Senator Eugene Murphy, Cllr John Keogh and Dr. Martin Daly, a GP based in Ballygar.
The frontrunner in the contest is likely to be Senator Murphy, who was first elected to Roscommon County Council in 1985 for the Boyle District, and held the seat until 2016. A native of Scramogue, he held a Dail seat for Fianna Fail from 2016 to 2020 and is currently a Senator on the Agricultural Panel.,
Dr Martin Daly, who is based in Ballygar in East Galway, is a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation and also worked as team doctor with Roscommon GAA. He ran for the Seanad as an Independent candidate in 2016.
The third candidate whose name is likely to go before convention is Cllr John Keogh, who comes from the southern end of county Roscommon, in Bealnamulla, and was Cathaoirleach of Roscommon County Council last year.