The biggest ward in the city could prove to be the most dramatic. The battle for the final seat is likely to be a showdown betweenLabour, which needs this seat to become the largest party in City Hall, and Fianna Fáil.
The ward was formerly a seven seater but was reduced to six in last year’s boundary changes and is therefore more competitive. Sitting councillors Brian Walsh (FG ), Declan McDonnell (Independent ), Tom Costello (Labour ), and Terry O’Flaherty (Independent ) all look set to retain their seats. However none of them likes being called safe.
“I need every vote I can get, I’m by no means a certainty,” Cllr O’Flaherty told the Galway Advertiser. “I don’t see myself as ‘safe’. I’m out having to work hard for every vote.”
Fianna Fáil will take one seat. The question is which of its two councillors will hold on? Michael J Crowe or Mary Leahy. Fianna Fáil needs to get 26 per cent of the vote to take two seats here. The figure is above their national average as indicated by recent opinion polls (20-21 per cent ) so the party is in real danger of losing it’s seat.
Cllr Crowe’s heartland of Bohermore, Lough Atalia, and College Road was removed from the ward in the boundary changes, leaving him without a natural base and down 300 votes. Cllr Leahy was co-opted onto City Hall in 2007 and is now facing her first election. As such she is a somewhat unknown quantity. Even at this late stage it is impossible to call which Fianna Fáiler will - if the party has a bad day - lose the seat.
There is also tension within the FF camp. It is understood that a prominant FFer in the city has been ringing party members in the ward asking them to back one of the female candidates, but failing to mention the other two - a practice that some in the party have called “gutter politics”.
FG’s Barra Nevin and Frank Fahy are judged to be good candidates and will do well, but are unlikely to make the breakthrough. The same can apply to FF’s Sheila Mangan in Tirellan, and Labour’s Nuala Nolan. Sinn Féin’s Martin Concannon is unlikely to regain the seat the party won here in 2004 before Daniel Callanan went Independent. However their transfers could play a major role in deciding the outcome.
The battle for the final seat is likely to be Fianna Fáil against the rising star of Labour, Derek Nolan. Mr Nolan is one of the only new, non-sitting, candidates who has a realistic chance of winning a seat.
He put in a good performance in 2004 and came within a whisker of the last seat. This time out his higher profile, a strong and positive campaign, and the surge of support for Labour make him a real contender.
Given the public anger being directed at FF it seems the party will struggle for a substantial vote. Transfers from Costello, Concannon, Nuala Nolan, and perhaps James Hope of the Greens, will transfer to Mr Nolan. Crowe/Leahy (depending on who is left fighting for the final seat ) can expect transfers from O’Flaherty, McDonnell, Mangan, and the first elected Fianna Fáiler.
Fianna Fáil is on shaky ground and the momentum is with Derek Nolan, but he still needs every vote he can get if he is to win the seat.
