‘I have touched positively every home of every parish’
By a blazing log fire inside it was, by comparison, a hive of activity with a small huddle of astute observers of life, in peaked caps and well-worn anoraks, holding court at the counter on what they insisted was a deserved early lunch break from the regular Tuesday sheep sale at Miltown Mart.
Chuffed to accept their local TD’s generous offer of a tipple, the mood was light and the banter was lively as they swung their stools around to engage with the man from Caherciveen.
“These men will tell you that they’ve never had it so good with the price of cattle and sheep rising all the time,” O’Donoghue beamed over his shoulder as he pumped hands, clapped backs and wished everybody well before ordering a Club Orange for himself and sliding a €50 note across the countertop to settle the bill.
“The price of sheep might be good but what are you going to do about the cost of ponies?” one impish local enquired with a knowing wink at the photographer. “I’ve five ponies at home and I had to get a bank loan to get them and feed them.”
“Then there’s a fear of you,” Mr O’Donoghue chuckled, “you must be the only man in the country that’s after getting a bank loan.”
Moments later, in a quiet corner of a back room in the welcoming old-style pub run by O’Donoghue’s first cousin, Kerry County Council member Michael O’Shea and his wife Susan, the embattled former Ceann Comhairle was more pensive and reflective as he contemplated the task in store in what will unquestionably be his toughest battle at the polls in his 24 years as a TD for Kerry South.
Apart altogether from the anticipated backlash against Fianna Fáil and the festering expenses saga that has dogg- ed his political career and impacted on his personal life, O’Donoghue also has to contend with the not so insignificant problem of a divisive split within the party ranks on his home turf.
His running mate in the last two general elections, Scartaglin publican Tom Fleming, has quit the party to contest the election as an Independent and he has brought a host of former FF loyalists with him, not least the influential Cllr Michael Cahill from Rossbeigh who resigned from the organisation after losing out to Mr O’Donoghue at a tense election convention in Killarney on January 9.
“There is no doubt but that it will be a titanic struggle and it will be an enormous battle but I’ve been a real political animal all my life and I relish the challenge,” Mr O’Donoghue said.
“I’m battle hardened but I’m not battle weary. It would be a mighty big mistake to write me off. The vast majority of the Fianna Fáil party in South Kerry is still very much part of the party and the work I have done is standing to me now,” he said.
The former minister conceded Tom Fleming’s decision to go solo was “a blow to the party” and a major disappointment to him personally.
“Our fathers were friends on Kerry County Council and I am deeply disappointed that this has occurred. Tom Fleming never explained to the party convention why he was leaving. He made no speech at convention unlike the time with Jackie Healy-Rae who did make a speech to explain himself, in fairness to him.
“It has certainly made our task harder but it has stiffened the resolve of the party and the evidence on the ground is that people are sticking with Fianna Fáil.”
Mr O’Donoghue said he was hugely disappointed by Cllr Michael Cahill’s decision to back the Fleming campaign: “He didn’t tell me or the party — he just upped and left. I think it was a mistake. The party decided to run just one candidate in South Kerry. I was selected and before we knew it, Tom Fleming and Michael Cahill were gone.
“I did not have any hand, act or part in the decision to run one candidate so if Fianna Fáil is beaten in this election then they can’t point the finger at me because I did not jump ship. I’m still on board,” he said.
He is at pains to stress that the expenses saga is not an issue on the doorsteps and he insists that very few people he has met have mentioned it.
“There is no anger with John O’Donoghue out there. I dealt with that issue in the Dáil in a very extensive speech, though there are things that I didn’t say which I could have said. It isn’t as if I wasn’t conscious of people’s concerns.
“I’m not a spendthrift, far from it. When I became Minister for Justice I refused any security at home or in Dublin and I dropped the second car. Where I took my eye off the ball I humbly apologised,” he said, adding that if financial reward was his motivation he would not be contesting the election on February 25.
“I would be financially better off for the rest of my life if I retired now and didn’t contest the election.”
O’Donoghue said the three burning issues he is encountering on the doorsteps are jobs, the health service and the economy, with voters expressing great concern for the future of their children.
“What I say to these people is that during my time in the Dáil I have worked harder than anybody else on their behalf to such an extent that I have been described as the Minister for Kerry. I have touched positively on every home of very parish, town and village in the constituency, either directly or indirectly, over the past 24 years and my record of service is second to none.
“As a TD, I am delighted to have delivered as much as I did. No TD in the history of the constituency delivered quite as much to it as I did.”
O’Donoghue said he hasn’t paid much heed to a recent poll, conducted by students of IT Tralee and published in Kerry’s Eye, which gave him just 10% of the vote in Kerry South — a scenario likely to result in him losing his seat in Leinster House.
“I’m not going to decry any poll and it was a snapshot in time but to be frank about it now, it wasn’t a very scientific poll in the way polls are done,” he maintained.
He says Brian Cowen was the unluckiest Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader in history because “everything that could go wrong did go wrong” but he enthusiastically backed Micheál Martin in the recent leadership contest and believes the Cork TD is the right man in the right place at the right time to build for the future.
“I have always believed that Micheál Martin should be leader of Fianna Fáil and Taoiseach. He has a great sense of history and a great understanding of the Irish mind-set with the heritage of Ireland ingrained in his bones.
“He is sophisticated and urbane but at the same time he has the common touch. His victory is one of the most important points in the history of the party because it means we are able to depart on a new road with him.
“He has the capacity to reorganise, rebuild and lead Fianna Fáil in what, in all probability, will be in opposition. I have great faith in him.”
