*Eddie Punch. Photograph: John Mangan
AFTER two election defeats this year, Eddie Punch (II) has said he will be “completely detached” from public life in 2025.
Punch’s campaign never really sprung to life despite his credentials as a candidate. He polled in eighth position of the twenty candidates but overtook Cllr Rita Mcinerney (FF) following transfers from June Dillon (AON) to prolong his involvement until the fourteenth count.
Having polled 20,751 first preference votes in Ireland South for the European elections in June, Eddie was never going to match that figure in Clare but it represented 3.01 percent of the vote whereas his return of 2,583 in the General Election was 4.1 percent of the vote and insufficient to have him in the reckoning despite his ability to pull high transfers from Dillon (895), Michael Leahy (IFP) (559), Hilary Tonge (SD) (169), Kevin Hassett (IND) (131) and Dr Tom Nolan (FG) (105).
Reflecting on his finish, Eddie stated, “There’s no point in saying I am not disappointed with the outcome of the election but look the people have spoken, and I have to respect their decision and, I wish the elected candidates all the best”.
Prior to the election, the Cratloe farmer told The Clare Echo if the Dáil bid didn’t work, he planned to “eat some seabass in Kuşadası in Turkey and drink some nice wine”. When asked if this remained on the horizon, he said, “God, I hope it is. But, like, I’ll have to you know, we’ll put it this way now, in 2025 I intend to be completely detached from public life or representing anybody except myself”.
He continued, “I think that this is a sign from the gods. I spent 25 years representing farmers and I think at this stage, and I will reflect on this, but I think at this stage, that I am finished with electoral politics and with representing farmers”.
On why the people of Clare didn’t back his cause, Eddie commented, “I don’t know, you’d have to have a, I suppose, a vox pop about that, what I do know is that there’s a lot of frustration in this county about the desperate state of our health services. I think there is an absolute need, I personally believe that it is unquestionable now that we need an accident and emergency in this county, I think, actually, we need a new hospital in a greenfield site, I would have spoken about this, and I think we need to be ambitious for the county. I think it is just no good politicians coming out next January and saying God isn’t a terrible all the people who are on trolleys in UHL. We need to accept that the experiment with UHL hasn’t worked, won’t work, can’t ever work. I hope that they don’t go to Dublin now and do what they’re told in Dublin, but they put their efforts into delivering, a proper health care facility for us here in Co Clare.
“Similarly, in Shannon Airport, I think they shouldn’t be just accepting the idea that 85% of our traffic goes through Dublin Airport. We need connectivity here in the Midwest to the main European cities, and I don’t think it’s good enough to just sit back and say, well, sure, nothing can be done”.
In March, he stepped down as general secretary of the he Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), a role he held for twenty five years. He said he would need to reflect on whether he could have done anything different regarding his General Election campaign. “I think when you look at the national results, it’s extremely I like, people are very attached to kind of voting Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, It’s kind of deep in their DNA. I would feel that politics should be about ideas, about vision and ambition for making the country a better place, but maybe that’s a bit naive on my behalf. I do think that people should be, going into the Dáil to try and change the country for the better in a way, bringing innovation to that kind of challenge. I do fear that a lot of politicians simply when they go to Dublin are voting fodder in Dáil Éireann and won’t be heard of again until the next election. We’ve had a lot of that in Clare, and I’m hoping it’ll change, but I’m not sure. Could I have done anything different? Well, I mean, we’ll have to go ahead and reflect on all of that. The one thing I do know is that unless you have a lot of money and a lot of people behind you, it’s very, very difficult”.
Independent Ireland targeted winning ten to twelve seats but only elected four TDs. When asked if his cause would have been better going solely as an Independent rather than under the Independent Ireland banner, he said, “When you get 2,500 votes there’s no point in saying if only I had done this it might have worked better, the reality is that this election, in fact, and this is not just about Clare, it looks like there’s a strong mandate for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, a mandate for Sinn Féin to be big in the Dáil as well, whether they are in opposition as well or a party in Government that remains to be seen but roughly speaking two thirds of the population have gone for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, that is the outcome of the election, realistically speaking there may well still be the potential for Green or Social Democrats or whatever to be part of small partners in a coalition. As for me, what can you say”.
