As the Fianna Fail grassroots look forward to this week’s selection convention it would seem the idea of a contest has regenerated a new enthusiasm among the delegates. The only certainty is that Minister Charlie McConalogue will be joined by either by Cllr. Michael Naughton or Pat the Cope Gallagher. This is the age old strategy that keeps candidates well apart to try and maximise their voting base. It should also be ok for Micheál Martin to visit the constituency without confrontration on the National media. Delegates arriving for the convention will be met with a protest by owners of houses with defective blocks. They are angry that numbers who’ve started remediation have already been informed they are excluded from the 10% increase proposed by Minister Darragh O’Brien to cope with construction costs. Fianna Fail will be bidding to win a second seat and they’ll hardly need reminding that their local election result was down by 7% and they are left with a base of 17,465 votes. It is a loss of 4,000 votes and that will need a few more piers officially opened and more millions poured into the county in the coming months. A major concern for Fianna Fail this time is the performance of the 100% Redress Party in June’s local elections. In the former Donegal NE constituency they polled over 5,630 votes while in the SW it was close to 1,770. These are the biggest changes in Donegal since the last general election. The emergence of the 100% Redress Party was like a bolt from the blue. And recent decisions to exclude those defective houses from any further cost increases has incensed the defective block campaigners. It does sound like a crazy idea… and it is not going to go away before the election.
