O’Keeffe moves in to spoil the Moynihan party

JUST one month ago, Junior Minister Batt O’Keeffe alleged there was a dirty tricks campaign being waged against him in Cork North West.

A rival faction was telling voters that he wasn’t actually standing in the election.

O’Keeffe didn’t say who he believed was responsible. He didn’t have to. The reporter who broke the story rang O’Keeffe’s Fianna Fáil running mates in the constituency and put the allegations to them.

Needless to say, both Donal and Michael Moynihan (who are not related) denied all knowledge of the affair. But the incident captured perfectly the lack of trust between the party candidates.

In Cork North West, Fianna Fáil don’t need the opposition to find a fight: they’re doing fine fighting among themselves.

In that respect, for the neutral observer, Cork North West promises to be one of the most entertaining battles in the election.

There are three seats, currently held by the Moynihans and Fine Gael TD Gerard Murphy. The two parties dominate the constituency, Fianna Fáil pulling in 50% of the vote in the 2002 election and Fine Gael 42%.

The narrowness of the gap means that, on a good day and with careful vote management, Fine Gael could win two of the seats. That is exactly what the party is aiming for. It hopes Michael Creed will regain the seat he lost in 2002.

So the Moynihans already faced a tough battle and to say the least, they were not enamoured when their own party decided to make it harder still by adding O’Keeffe to the ticket. There is simply no way Fianna Fáil will take all three seats.

In fairness, neither party headquarters nor O’Keeffe had much choice. O’Keeffe was elected in Cork South Central in 2002, but subsequent boundary revisions saw his home patch of Ballincollig, a key urban district, being transferred to Cork North West. O’Keeffe had to follow his votes and in December 2004, ended months of speculation by confirming he would run in Cork North West. Neither Moynihan rolled out the red carpet.

Fast forward to January 2006 and the Fianna Fáil selection convention in Millstreet. Standard practice is that delegates (the local party supporters) vote to select the ticket from a range of candidates. But in this case, party headquarters had already stipulated who the candidates would be, and formally ratified the ticket without putting it to a vote.

Delegates roared abuse at the representatives from party headquarters, condemning the convention as a “sham”. Many of the 350 present were supporters of one or other Moynihan. There was clear resentment that O’Keeffe was being foisted upon them.

But his unwelcome arrival did have one curious effect. During the two previous general election campaigns, the respective Moynihan camps had clashed bitterly, to the point where, in 2002, a scuffle infamously broke out as some of Michael’s supporters drifted into an area allocated to Donal for canvassing.

O’Keeffe’s arrival led to something of a thaw between the Moynihan camps. “There’s a sense they’re uniting against the impostor,” said one knowledgeable source at FF headquarters with a chuckle.

But it’s doubtful the Moynihans see the funny side, because O’Keeffe looks a safe bet for a seat, meaning either Donal or Michael is going to lose out on polling day. And it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Fine Gael could win two seats, meaning both Moynihans would fall.

A recent poll, however, suggests just one seat for Fine Gael, meaning its candidates, like those of Fianna Fáil, are fighting each other as much as opponents from rival parties. For those who like their spectator sports bloody, Cork North West will be a cracker.