*Timmy Dooley takes a selfie with Cathal Crowe, Pat O’Gorman, Rachel Hartigan and David Griffin.
FIANNA FÁIL MEMBERS are keen that a third candidate will be added to their ticket in the Shannon Municipal District.
On Monday night, local members across the various cumann in the Shannon MD voted to have Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) and David Griffin (FF) on the ticket with Rachel Haritgan (FF) losing out.
Before the votes of the convention were even announced, Cllr Pat McMahon (FF) who hours previously announced his retirement from politics in an exclusive interview with The Clare Echo, extended his best wishes to the successful two candidates “and hopefully a third, I’d be confident a third candidate will be added”.
O’Gorman who topped the vote said the convention was “only half the battle”. He stated, “I am hoping Rachel will be added and we’ll fight the battle as a trio because that will be the ideal scenario”. He said it was very important to have a convention to give local members the chance to have their say and “choose the people they want to represent them”.
Party veteran, Johnny Moroney said the party must learn from past mistakes at conventions. “The girl in Parteen has to be added, if she ran as an Independent she would walk in and clean up, it happened before with PJ Ryan and Michael Begley, we can’t let it happen again,” the Sixmilebridge man remarked. Both Ryan and Begley were elected as Independent councillors having defected from Fianna Fáil.
Headquarters must be made aware of this view argued insisted long-serving member, Robert Frost. “Send a message to Mount Street that we want three candidates. We’d have three excellent candidates then,” the former President of the Munster Council believed.
Senator Timmy Dooley (FF) admitted he met Ardnacrusha native Hartigan for the first time at the convention and spoke of her passion and capacity, “she will be an excellent public representative. I am reminded here that this time five years ago we had a convention in Ennis, a young man called Mark Nestor put his name forward, he got less votes than Rachel here tonight but he was added to the ticket and he went on to head the poll”.
Based on geography, gender balance and ability, Senator Dooley insisted running three candidates in the Shannon MD was the best strategy. “I hope that before Paudie Mc (this writer) in the corner gets his paper on the street on Thursday morning that it will be addressed and we will have three candidates selected”. He continued, “we have a young gender balanced team with experience, we can win three seats and don’t believe a party with newfound interest in all sorts of things”.
Clare TD, Cathal Crowe taught Rachel as a student in Parteen NS. He estimated that he has in the region of 580 past pupils, “the young fellas have beards now and the girls have make-up so when you see them you’re not entirely sure if you taught them before”. He recalled that this spring he received an email from Hartigan who said she was studying politics in UL and wished to become an intern in his constituency office. “As the summer went on, I asked her where she wanted to go and she said she wanted to be a politician which I thought was brilliant”.
Deputy Crowe predicted the twenty one year old and Griffin would climb further in the political world. “I believe both of you can make the journey to national politics, there is every reason why we should be running three, it is the perfect balance, David in northern part, Pat in middle and Rachel down the south of the Municipal District”.
He added, “I have no doubt that when we get to next June that we will deliver three Council seats”. A desire from the members to run three candidates must be acknowledged by headquarters, Crowe felt who said time should not be wasted in making it happen.
