As sure as the sun rises in the morning, Eamon Ó Cuív will be re-elected. However the Dáil he faces will enjoy no such certainty, as an angry electorate rejects the Government, and no single party holds enough seats to lead a majority, Government. For Dep Ó Cuív though, this could be the makings of a much stronger, more effective parliament.
From the moment returning officer Marian Chambers-Higgins announced the Cornamona based politician's first preference vote of 9,539 it was obvious he was not only going to top the poll in Galway West, but that he would also be first elected, to what many consider, 'The Safest Seat In The State'.
"It's very satisfying," Dep Ó Cuív tells the Galway Advertiser. "We had a very focused campaign. I contained my efforts to Connemara and South Mayo. I didn't canvass in the city. My running mates concentrated on the city and the east of the constituency
The Dáil Dep Ó Cuív re-enters will be a very different arena to before. Labour has been decimated, Fine Gael humbled, Fianna Fáil doubled, and Left, Independent, and smaller parties more numerous than before. The question that now faces people like Dep Ó Cuív is, can they do, what the numbers are suggesting, and coalesce with the 'Auld Enemy', Fine Gael?
"We have said we won't," he replies. "It's not good when you say something, again and again, unequivocally, to then go changing policy, so I think we'd have to be very careful before going in that direction. The Government got thrown out of office. Fine Gael got a decent number of seats, but the government had 113 in 2011 and has dropped by about 60. The electorate did not like what they were doing, the austerity cutbacks led approach, so to put Fine Gael in again as the main party of government, despite a defeat, I think it would not be welcomed by the people."
It is not impossible that another election could be called before the year is out, but it is debatable whether this is in anyone's interest. As a result, is this not an imperative in itself, for FF and FG to join together? Is this not the logic of the numbers?
"Fine Gael and Sinn Féin could go into government together, but they would be incompatible, that's also the logic of the numbers," he says. "I think Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are very incompatible. I think we all have to take a step back and respect what the electorate have said. "
While the Government, and sections of the commentariat, predicted political instability and economic ruin unless a strong vote was given a majority to the established parties, Dep Ó Cuív has no fear of what this uncertain, new, political future holds. Indeed he argues that it may be the healthiest thing to happen to Irish politics in years.
"We are often told democracy doesn't work fully in Ireland because the Government has control over the Dáil. Maybe this Dáil will have control over the government. Minority governments have worked well in the past, and perhaps a minority government, will be subject to more scrutiny and accountability by the opposition. A minority government would possibly have not let the fiasco of Irish Water happen."
Dep Ó Cuív also believes politics in the Republic should also take this opportunity to look more broadly at how a parliament and a State can be administered. "I'm not adverse to new ways of doing Government," he says. "Look at Northern Ireland and how they run things. They have a lot of challenges, but there are some interesting ideas there. We should also look at how the Nordic countries do things."
Apart from the machinations of power-politics, there is always a TDs work to be done, what are his priorities, now he has been re-elected a Galway West TD?
"I'm in favour of the city bypass/N6 project, we need to see that, and the port project," he says. "We need the city to grow inwards, nor outwards so that it does not spread further into amenity land. We need much better public transport, and I cannot emphasise enough - housing, housing, housing! We also have a heroin problem in Galway city, and we need to look at the social dimension of what is causing that addiction."
