By Evelyn Cullen
‘I threw everything at it’ said Niall Blaney ‘what happens now, happens’ he said speaking to the Donegal News late on on Sunday night at the aura leisure centre in Letterkenny about his campaign for the European parliament elections. His comments came in advance of the first count which is not due to get underway until around lunchtime on Monday.
Based on the initial tallies from Donegal Mr Blaney was very positive about his vote ‘At the moment I’ve tallied about 14,500 votes in Donegal which I’m very pleased with, a fabulous vote’. He attributes this partly to his fantastic young team across social media, finance, PR and overall operations who he says are very driven and put in a trojan effort.
Running in the Midlands North-West constituency which includes fifteen counties there was huge ground to cover and it was a busy campaign for the Fianna Fáil Senator who’s on his first outing for a seat Europe. ‘I started my campaign well over a year ago and I’ve nearly 135,000 kilometres clocked up on my Audi by now’ he said.
Mammoth task
With such a massive constituency how did Mr. Blaney approach the mammoth task? He started by visiting party members and going to all the council conventions and party meetings, making connections with the teams there and giving them an appreciation of what they will be working for. ‘With such a big constituency it’s like a presidential election’ he said ‘I spread myself as far as I could across 40 electoral areas but no candidate can go round all the doors, so you’re very much depending on the organisation’.
But he doesn’t believe the constituency will stay like that. Having taken in Laois and Offaly in 2023 Midlands-North West is now the largest of the three Ireland constituencies containing fifteen counties and almost two million of an electorate but with just five seats. The Ireland South constituency includes ten counties and also has five seats, while the Dublin constituency is made up of Dublin city and county and has four seats, giving Ireland a total of fourteen seats in the European parliament.
‘There’s a natural divide without dividing any counties for a Leinster three-seater, a Connacht three seater and the Ulster border counties for a three seater. They could have changed it this time, but unfortunately the commission just didn’t bother doing that’ he said.
The border
The border is a big issue for Blaney’s agenda. ‘There has to be more recognition of our difficulty north and south at European level’ he said ‘they need to know more about it and we need representatives out there who actually will advocate on behalf of the north as well’.
Levelling up
‘I’m also very adamant that we in the west and the border counties aren’t forgotten about because we are the poorest part of the region. There’s too much brain drain and too many young people are leaving our shores because they haven’t the same opportunities as other parts of the country. We are always losing out against the east and south west but we are as entitled to it as them and Europe is about levelling up’ he said about the opportunity for the seat in this region.
No grudges
Asked about anything he regretted about his campaign he said he was disappointed by his lack of national coverage. ‘I would have loved to have gotten the same opportunity as others in the national media’ he said. But he wasn’t drawn on placing blame at anybody’s door. Alluding to the public row he had at a press conference in May with Tánaiste and party leader Micheál Martin over apparent unequal support across the three Fianna Fáil candidates, Blaney said he had said all he had to say on that matter and doesn’t hold any grudges.
As for his relationships with his two running mates Barry Cowen and Lisa Chambers, Mr Blaney said ‘It’s an election and we battled, but we get on again grand afterwards. May the best candidates win’.
For now though Mr Blaney is happy that the has had a good start ‘but we will have to wait for the first count on Monday to tell the tale and we’ll have a better idea where we are at then’ he said.
He plans to travel to Castlebar on Monday where the first count for the Midlands-North West is due to get underway in the afternoon, and a clearer picture will start to emerge.
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