Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
SO STRONG ARE party loyalties in Laois that Sinead Moore had to convince her own mother to vote for her in next week’s election.
The Green Party candidate, a teacher based in north Dublin, freely admits there is “not a hope in hell” of her winning a seat “unless there’s an absolute miracle”.
That sort of realism is perhaps why Laois has been described as the most boring and predictable constituency in this election. Just six candidates, including three sitting TDs, are fighting it out for the three seats.
It used to be part of the Laois-Offaly constituency but the boundary redraw in 2012 saw the large five-seater split into two three-seaters with the county of Laois taking in six electoral districts from Kildare South.
Sitting Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan describes the constituency as a “microcosm of Ireland in 2016″ with the urban centres of Portlaoise and Portarlington towards the north and the rural farmlands in the south, east and west.
“In east Laois you have the grain farmers, in the south-west you have the dairy farmers and in mid-Laois you have the beef farmers, and then the towns and the challenges they face,” he said.
Many analysts expect the incumbents – Fine Gael’s Flanagan, Fianna Fáil’s Seán Fleming and Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley – to be returned without too much trouble.
Noel Whelan, the author of The Tallyman’s Campaign Handbook, described Laois as “the most interesting constituency because it’s the most boring”.
“You have three strong, well-placed incumbents who spent their time previously running in a two-county constituency where it was all about ensuring tribal county loyalties to hold the seat,” Whelan explained.
Charlie Flanagan was the Laois Fine Gael candidate as was Seán Fleming for Fianna Fáil. None of their parties are vulnerable. If you had a vulnerable incumbent, there would be a possibility, but none of the three sitting guys look like they could be replaced.
Whelan believes the tradition of party loyalties, along with three strong incumbents has meant potential candidates took a look at the constituency and decided against running.
Stanley, the Sinn Féin TD, believes that Laois has never been a hotbed of independent candidates.
“Independents, in the past, wouldn’t have polled exceptionally well in national elections. They haven’t gained too much traction in the past. when you compare it to what’s happening in other parts of the country,” he said.
Moore, who grew up on a farm in the village of Emo, has a blunt assessment of the outcome next week. She said: “The reason why there are only six candidates going is the three seats are sewn up.
There’s such little chance of breaking through. I had to fight with my mother for her to give me her vote. She is going to vote for me, but I had to work at it!
Moore said she’s pretty much on her own as there is no Green Party in Laois, adding that she hopes to help the party regain state funding it lost in 2011 as a result of garnering less than 2% of the the national vote.
But some in the constituency don’t see the outcome as a foregone conclusion.
Labour senator John Whelan insists he has a genuine chance of taking a seat from Sinn Féin’s Stanley.
Despite his Labour affiliation, Whelan thinks his opposition to the construction of large scale wind farms in the area has galvanised support around his campaign, rather than an independent or single-issue candidate.
He dismissed analyses which say this constituency is already decided:
What’s not being taken into account is I am getting a very positive reaction on the doors. Your analysis is fine on paper, but it doesn’t take into account the boundary review which gifted me a Labour stronghold.
Whelan believes that the addition of six electoral districts, which include 7,500 votes, from Kildare South will help his cause. Labour returned two councillors from that area in the 2014 local elections, bucking a national trend. Whelan repeatedly points out that he was born and raised in Monasterevin, which is now party of the constituency.
If he is within 1,000 votes of Stanley after the first count on Saturday week, Whelan believes he can get sufficient transfers to take the seat.
Stanley believes everybody poses a threat, not just Whelan and insisted: “I am out to maximise the vote for our party.”
The Borris-in-Ossory native disputes the claim that the inclusion of parts of south Kildare will benefit the Labour hopeful.
“I’ve been working on the ground in south Kildare for the last four years and I don’t detect any great support for Labour,” Stanley said.
I know Labour got a very hostile reception there recently when Joan Burton visited. I do know people in the area feel that Labour has neglected the area.
Furthermore, Whelan’s transfer situation is not helped by the addition of a second Fine Gael candidate in Thomasina Connell, which the Labour senator described as “not the most cooperative move from them [Fine Gael]“.
Unsurprisingly, Ballybrittas-based Connell takes a very different view and believes she’s energised the youth vote in the area.
The three sitting TDs are all men in their 50s. I am the youngest candidate and there’s a good response to me.
“People want someone young, the amount of people who have said that to me is unbelievable. We’ve never elected a woman in Laois,” the solicitor said.
Connell believes she can benefit from an increased number of younger voters who were energised by the marriage referendum last year.
One of the men in their 50s she refers to is Seán Fleming, Fianna Fáil’s long-serving TD, who rejected claims that the constituency is all sewn-up for him.
“Ivan Yates has said that and Paddy Power has said that, but nobody has won anything until the final whistle,” he insisted.
The last seat is always up for grabs because Fine Gael have two candidates and John Whelan’s view is that he could end up with a surplus that, if that gap between him and Sinn Féin isn’t that big, he might be able to bridge it.
Similarly, Flanagan, who succeeded his father Oliver in 1987, takes nothing for granted.
“There’s no such thing as an easy election, there’s no such thing as a foregone conclusion, there’s no such thing as a safe seat,” the current Foreign Affairs Minister said.
Flanagan thinks the reason for a lack of independents or other party candidates is “maybe” the view that the politicians who are already elected are “hard working and cover the ground”.
“There is a strong sense of loyalty to parties,” he said.
All candidates agree that the big issue on the doors is the future of services at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.
There are fears the 24/7 Emergency Department will be downgraded to a day service, but any decision by the HSE has been put off until after the election.
Everyone is quick to stress that the situation is not similar to Roscommon Hospital in 2011, where the downgrading of services led to the departure of Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten.
Portlaoise is a busier hospital, serving a population of over 250,000 in Laois and the surrounding areas.
Flanagan said he will be a tireless advocate for the hospital, but Whelan insisted he will vote against any effort to downgrade services, even if a Fine Gael-Labour government supports it.
Fleming describes the proposal to downgrade services as “ridiculous” and says it should be withdrawn. Stanley said that a report on the matter had been “put under a cushion until after the election”.
Whatever happens everyone’s expecting it to be over quickly on Saturday week, with John Whelan predicting: ”We’ll be able to call the result on the first count.”
Boring and predictable it might be, but Laois should at least provide a quick count on 27 February.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Customers???? What have IW to sell to anyone.
@Dave Doyle:
Delivery and maintenance of the water system
@Nick Allen: Maintenance of water infrastructure should always be a state’s own responsibility. No company should ever be allowed profit from this.
@Joe Phillips:
If a third party company could maintain the water system more cost effectively than the government while still making a profit would you object to that?
The problem with national assets is that they without question the Irish people / government needs to maintain ownership and the assets should never be allowed to be sold to the highest bidder. However, the government is not skilled and and has demonstrated superbly well that it cannot mange these assets correctly. We need to find a solution where we still own it but outsource the management to specialist professionals. For example, TransDev manager the LUAS and by and large deliver a good service while making a profit yet the state still owns the LUAS. We need this type of public / private partnership which is a genuine partnership and not just a cover to sell of the assets or allow a private organisation to try an maximise profit from it.
@Nick Allen: ‘Delivery and maintenance of the water system’ IS and WAS already paid for.
Anything extra should be taken the same way or that should also be refunded.
We are sick and tired for paying twice and three times for everything with still the underlying issues being left unfixed.
@eastsmer:
You need to move on from that idea. There is a finite pot of money to pay for our services to be delivered and we need to pay more into the pot. It doesn’t matter what u think u have paid for nor what you have paid for we still need money to pay for our water system.
@Nick Allen: = Neo liberal lemon
@Nick Allen: IW are no more than a glorified billing company. They do nothing to maintain a system or deliver one drop of water to anyone.
This “customer” stupidity is no more than a euphemism used in an attempt to change who people think about IW.
The DSP are trying the same stupidity on people.
@Nick Allen:
Except Irish Water has already cost the taxpayer billions and has provided absolutely nothing in return.
@Nick Allen:
Yes we need to pay for our water system
But Irish Water needs to be closed.
It is a billing company set up to privatise a natural resource,.
It has absolutely no legitimacy and not a penny should ever be paid to it.
@eastsmer: The issues are very fixed now. The Water Services Bill 2017 has seen to that.
Water will be privatised. It will go the way of the ESB.
We have been royally shafted by FG/FF.
The bill was disguised as a means to pay the “refund”.
The detail, which has been kept very quite, has laid the ground for privatisation.
@Colin Morris:
Where did I say or suggest that IW was the right organisation to deliver this?
@Setrakian:
Do you know what an internet troll is? How is my comment trolling? It is simply expressing my view which is directly related to the article and the comments I replied to.
Its funny how people resort to name calling and factual inaccuracies when they don’t know enough about the subject matter nor have the ability to debate it on its merits. And it is you who offers me sympathy, thanks for that but I do feel guilty as it is you who is more deserving of sympathy
@Colin Morris: Wicklow County Council take care of the maintenance of the water system here as they always did. Only now it’s under contract to Irish Water. Every other city and county council must be the same. The only difference is there is now a third party call centre you call and they in turn call the council…… How this is more cost effective to pay over a billion euro to set up a quango to collect cash is beyond me.
@Nick Allen: you are on the journal throughout the day – every day fully supporting everything your rotten government is responsible for including the Irish Water scam. Apologies for the late reply – I’ve been busy working. You are a troll & going by most comments in response to your ignorant posts – a complete numpty. Hope that clarifies for you Nicky.
@Nick: You are flogging a dead rat mate, it’s already paid for.
They sent the bills to the correct address I’m sure they can send the refund cheque to it too
@Michelle_Herbert:
You are making the assumption that nobody has changed their address since they initially provide it to IW. Do you really think this is likely?
@Nick Allen: I bet you paid them extra.
@Justin Barrett:
Why? because I highlighted that some people have changed address over the last couple of years. Interesting logic there.Ah, well, if I did pay extra then no doubt I will get an even bigger refund, I wonder what I will treat myself to this xmas with the new found windfall.
@Michelle_Herbert: I got my cheque on Monday. It’s only if your address changes that you need to inform IW.
@Michelle_Herbert: they need to refund back through the same channels that payment was made. In general if people pay electronically, then their refund should return to their account, electronically.
People with no bank accounts cannot cash these cheques. Those people paid in cash in post offices. They should get refunded by the same method.
@Father Hody Commody:
They only need to refund back to the original payment method if the original payment method was a card payment
@Michelle_Herbert: There is also a percentage of us that had no choice and had to pay IW or the sale of our house could not be completed (the government made it law in January 2016) obviously we are no longer at that address so IW has to be informed.
@Father Hody Commody: you’re an idiot. Not true dumb fcuk
Irish Water? Never heard of it.
And once this money has been repaid I assume that Irish Water will be closed in its entirety and all its staff made redundant.
it is a truly toxic company that served no other purpose than as a billing company set up to privatise a natural resource.
Irish people (who already pay for water through taxation) need to pay for water – but not a penny must EVER be paid to Irish Water.
By the way any correspondence from Irish Water must be automatically binned.
@Colin Morris: The issuing of cheques to people that paid cash enables this ‘company’ to obtain bank account details where the cheques are lodged. That’s why they issue cheques.
@Father Hody Commody: They only need your address. No one needs bank account details to issue a cheque.
@Father Hody Commody: Its actually the other way around. To issue by cheque you do not need the bank account details, to do an electronic funds transfer then you do need the account details.
As a matter of interest, in your conspiracy theory what it the benefit to Irish water to have your bank account details? Unless you give them explicit permission to withdraw funds then they cannot do so.
@Father Hody Commody: you haven’t a clue. Back to junior infants with ya
Geez and here,s me thinking a customer is someone who willingly does business with someone else.
@Derek Poutch: Exactly. They had no business acquiring our details to begin with.
Is this the real Irish water or that fake one, sounds like those scams.
I recently moved house and phoned IW to change my details. They were unbelievably unhelpful demanding crazy information and making it as hard as possible to change my details. I sensed it was a deliberate attempt to not refund me
Be very careful of phishing.
The chancers tried to get my PPS number.
I’m sure they’d have their details if they were supposed to pay and hadn’t.
Would have made a nice Christmas bonus..had I been a big enough mug to pay in the first place.
Hearing a lot of spin about this, yet as someone who paid charge and has a water meter at my gate i haven’t heard a peep out of IW. Are they doing anything other than issuing press releases i wonder????
@eimsley:
You can go onto their website and enter your account number and WPRN number and it will tell you the size of your refund and the date they expect to post it to you
@Nick Allen: think he means if they have done any actual infrastructure maintenance that isn’t just reactionary and more preventative. Bugger all in 3-4 Years I think at the cost of billions.
They would know where you live if they were after money .
No and they never will.
Happy to say I got my cheque in the post and bought 4 Superdraw tickets with it
Got my cheque this week, donating one third each to FG, the parish church and to the pro life campaign. :)
They have mine even though I never gave it to them. They still haven’t responded to my query as to where they got my details.
People 1 irish water 0
Some other right here
I paid with Post Office how do i get my refund
have your say