*Pat Daly and Clare Colleran Molloy. Photograph: Martin Connolly
In the four elections he contested up until last weekend Pat Daly never had to endure a wait until the final count to secure his seat, the new experience was “scary” for the Ennis man.
A poll topper in 1999 when he first ran for the Council, Daly didn’t reach the quota last weekend but did enough to hold off the challenge of Independent Dermot Hayes as he and Ann Norton secured the final seats in the Ennis Municipal District.
“It was a new experience for me because for the last four elections I got in fairly comfortably. In 1999 I headed the poll on the first time out, today was a totally new experience and I was happy enough with the first preference but a couple of them caught up with me, a scary time,” he told The Clare Echo.
He continued, “It was scary, I thought about it when I went home last night, I’d miss the Council, I’m a full-time Councillor and what would I be doing without it, playing cricket or knitting,” the former parliamentary assistant to Tony Killeen joked.
According to the Fianna Fáil representative, “it was Mary’s day” as Cllr Howard became the first woman to top the poll in Ennis and he congratulated the daughter of the late Senator Michael Howard for her achievement.
For this term he will be joined on the Council by Cloughleigh’s Mark Nestor who he feels has a big future in politics ahead of him. “I was absolutely thrilled for Mark, he is a young man and can go further in the future if he wants to. A very educated guy, a shrewd politician, a young head but an old master at politics”.
