Heavy hitters head up fight for FF seat

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern rolled out the heavy hitters yesterday by charging Brian Cowen and Willie O’Dea with the task of holding on to the Fianna Fáil seat vacated by Charlie McCreevy.

After relenting to Fine Gael and Labour’s demands to hold the double by-election before St Patrick’s Day, the Taoiseach immediately appointed the Minister for Finance and Minister for Defence as director and deputy director of elections in Kildare North.

Despite Mr Ahern’s expressed preference for the by-elections in Meath and Kildare North to be held after Easter, polling day was announced yesterday as March 11 when the writs were moved by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Fianna Fáil will select a candidate for Kildare North tomorrow night, with Cllr Michael Fitzpatrick, Mr McCreevy’s constituency adviser for seven years, and Áine Kitt-Brady, the sister of Government chief whip Tom Kitt, seen as the front-runners.

Although Ms Kitt-Brady is regarded as the preferred candidate of Fianna Fáil headquarters, Mr Fitzpatrick remains the favourite to secure the most votes from local party activists at the selection convention in Maynooth, Co Kildare, tomorrow night.

Fianna Fáil councillors Liam Doyle, Willie Callaghan and Anthony Creevy are also seeking the nomination.

While the opposition parties were proclaiming the setting of the date as a victory, the appointment of Mr Cowen and Mr O’Dea to manage the campaign was viewed as a signal of intent by the party as both are well established among the leading vote-getters in the country.

Yesterday, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael set out the theme of their campaigns to hold on to the seats vacated by Mr McCreevy in Kildare North and John Bruton in Meath.

Emphasising the record of Mr McCreevy, Mr Cowen said his party would be asking if it is in the interests of the people of Kildare North to have no Government TD representing them.

Fine Gael director of elections Phil Hogan said the people of Meath won’t want to give Fianna Fáil four out of five TDs as it would breed complacency.

Also last night, Fianna Fáil TDs and senators backed a motion calling for the M3 motorway to be built on its present proposed controversial route in Meath. The motion was proposed by four TDs and senators from the Meath and Cavan/ Monaghan constituencies at last night’s meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. Environment Minister Dick Roche told the meeting he was consulting with National Museum director Pat Wallace and would make the decision “as expeditiously as possible”.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen said he was ready to start and as soon as Mr Roche made a decision he would get “shovels in the ground”.