by Kate Heaney
DESPITE losing the Fianna Fáil nomination to become the party’s chosen candidate for the EU elections later this year by just 70 votes, Senator Niall Blaney is determined to see his name being the second party member added to the ballot for the Midlands North West EU constituency.
The Fanad native believes passionately that Donegal and the near border counties need strong representation at EU level in order to allow the region to catch up economically with the rest of the country.
Speaking to the Donegal News this week Senator Blaney said he is in pole position to become the second candidate having received the winning number of votes in four of the party’s polling booths in Monday’s party ballot.
He won in the Sligo booth by a landslide, he won Navan and got the same vote in the Galway booth as his party colleague and nomination winner Barry Cowan.
“To be 70 votes short and a swing of 36 votes is a very small margin when we had thousands of votes each,” Senator Blaney told the Donegal News.
Former Tanaiste and Chair of the party’s Donegal Comhairle Ceantair Mary Coughlan yesterday told the Donegal News that she signed a letter from the Ceantair to party HQ requesting that Senator Blaney’s name be added to the EU ticket.
“It is based on the fact he did so well and had a high percentage of Monday’s poll.
“From a geographical point of view his going on the ballot means the votes would be well distributed and there is now an additional EU seat in the Midlands North West constituency and we could have two MEPs elected there,” Ms Coughlan said.
She confirmed that the request for a meeting with party organiser Sean Dorgan had been requested.
“We are very anxious that we are listened to. We know that the Sligo Ceantair has also written to party HQ on this. It will be at least two weeks before we hear back from the constituency committee who make the decisions on elections. We await their reply,” Ms Coughlan added.
Offaly TD Barry Cowen edged out Senator Blaney in a keenly contested and well-attended convention in Mullingar on Monday.
After party colleague Lisa Chambers was eliminated, her 570 votes were distributed between the two remaining candidates with Senator Blaney taking the majority of her transfers at 268 while Deputy Cowan got 248.
However, when these votes were added to the remaining candidates first preference votes of Barry Cowan’s 894 and Niall Blaney’s 803. Deputy Cowan won with 1,140 compared to Senator Blaney’s total of 1,070.
In the most competitive convention to date, a total of 2,267 Fianna Fáil members in the constituency cast their votes for the three candidates in four centres across the sprawling constituency – Navan, Mullingar, Sligo town and Athenry – between 11am and 4pm on Monday.
The votes from the three other centres were then transferred to the Mullingar House Hotel where counting began after 6pm.
Fianna Fáil has not held a seat in this constituency for 10 years.
The then sitting MEP Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher was not successful in retaining his seat there in the 2014 elections.
When nominations closed for this year’s EU elections, the former MEP Pat the Cope Gallagher was also a candidate but withdrew early in the race.
The party is expected to add an additional name to the ticket and Ms Chambers, the party’s leader in the Seanad, is seen as the favourite to be the second candidate, notwithstanding the strong performance by Mr Blaney.
“If you talk to any of the party members or back benchers they are all of the view that they are sick of seeing Lisa Chambers hugging the media limelight even though it did not do much for her when it came to Monday’s actual votes.
“I am the one with the greatest vote spread in this EU constituency and you have to ask why I did so well and why are voters connecting with me. It is about where we are at as a border, Midlands and west region. If you go back to the noughties we were given Objective One Status and that has now been lost in Europe. We need it to get balanced regional development back again. We have been left behind when you look at roads and infrastructure so we don’t attract the same number of jobs and that leads to a brain drain,” Senator Blaney said.
He pointed out that no sitting MEPs are shouting about this nor the fishing territory lost because of Brexit.
“We are not being represented at EU level from this part of the country. It is about us as a region. “Give us the same opportunities as they have in the rest of the country.
“There are now different elements of the party who want to see my name added to the nomination. I’m not giving up yet. I spent the last ten months meeting hundreds of thousands of members on the ground and I have the foundation built in this constituency,” Senator Blaney added.
With Midlands North West now becoming a five-seat constituency, the party is confident it can win at least one seat.
The constituency is currently represented by Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, Sinn Féin’s Chris McManus and Fine Gael’s Colum Markey and Maria Walsh.
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