After witnessing the elevation of his protégé, Robert Troy to the Dail last month, the 29-year political career of Castlepollard businessman Donie Cassidy ended this week in bittersweet fashion after he failed in his efforts to be returned to the 24th Senate.
He may, however, gain some comfort with the news that the campaign of his local Fine Gael competitor, Cllr Peter Burke, was being “clobbered”, according to a party insider yesterday, Thursday April 28.
In a career that spanned from just after the hunger strikes to just before the visit of the Queen, the longest-standing politician on the national stage in Longford-Westmeath seemed a little disappointed.
“This has all come a little sudden and I haven’t decided what to do just yet,” was all Mr Cassidy could say from the Senate count yesterday, Thursday April 28 in the RDS in Dublin.
The 66-year-old Mr Cassidy, Leader of the last Senate, failed in his attempt to return via the 11-seat Labour panel. It is expected all 60 Senate seats will be allocated by the end of the weekend, but for how long is anybody’s guess as the House’s abolishment has been included in the new Government’s “Programme for Government”.
Mr Cassidy was initially elevated to the Senate as a Taoiseach’s choice by Charles Haughey in 1982.
He was first elected to the Westmeath County Council three years later, a seat he held until relinquishing it in 2003 on account of the dual mandate rule.
Part of the polarizing of Fianna Fail in Westmeath along a north/south divide with former Minister Mary O’Rourke during this period, Cassidy took his only Dail seat from her in 2002 with a healthy 7,892 first preference votes.
This was reversed in 2007 after boundary changes saw Donie lose Castlepollard and a swathe of his north Westmeath heartland to the Meath West constituency. After this, Mr Cassidy was returned to the Senate until his political demise was confirmed yesterday.
This final period in the Oireachtas was notable in Mr Cassidy’s career for its controversies, most notably when he predicted in April 2008 that house prices would rise between 25 and 30 per cent over the next year, and then again last year when he voiced an opinion about how difficult it would be to raise a family on his Senate income of around €135,000 - some €2,000 a week above the average industrial wage.
Mr Cassidy started professional life as a showband musician, before moving into music management and publishing, then retail and the hotel industry. He is married to Anne and has four sons.
The 60-seat Upper House is modelled on the House of Lords and is filled by 11 Taoiseach appointees, six senators elected by university graduates, and 43 through the five vocational panels - Labour; Culture and Education; Administration; Industry and Commerce; and Agriculture.
Deirdre Clune, former Cork TD and scion of the Barry’s tea dynasty, is expected to be the leader for the next sitting.
