Ryan’s political pedigree failed to impress voters

DEFEATED Dublin MEP candidate Eoin Ryan is the third generation of a powerful political family.

His grandfather James was a medical officer attending to those wounded in the GPO during the 1916 Rising and went on to play a key role in the Anglo-Irish negotiations before the Civil War.

A founder member of Fianna Fáil and a cabinet minister, Dr James’s son, Eoin senior, served as senator and director of elections for the party in a long political career.

Eoin Jnr, now aged 56, followed the same path.

After studying horticulture in Kilkenny he was elected in Dublin City Council in 1985, was appointed to the Seanad in 1989 and won a Dáil seat in 1992.

In 2000 he was promoted to junior for drugs strategy and won favourable reviews from community groups, especially in Dublin.

However, in a reshuffle he was demoted in a move which baffled many analysts who thought Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was building a future for his ally.

Ryan ran in the party’s haphazard European campaign in Dublin in 2004.

At the time poster-boy Royston Brady was in line to win the seat but imploded at the last minute.

Ryan managed to enter the fray and instead claimed the seat for the party.

Before the last General Election he was expected to return to contest a seat in Dublin South East, where his daughter Sarah was co-opted on to the city council in 2008.

However, in 2007 the MEP refused to budge from Brussels in a decision which was seen as a revenge for the party’s blatant failure to back him in 2007.

Ryan’s laid back persona is often commented on and it feeds criticism his re-election campaign was lacklustre.

However, with Dublin’s allocation of European seats cut from four to three he was always going to face a dog-fight.

This was not helped by ill-feeling towards the Government and the tactic of running outgoing Lord Mayor Eibhlin Byrne as a sweeper candidate.

In the final weeks of the campaign Ryan was supported by party heavy weights, ex-PD and Health Minister Mary Harney and Fine Gael’s ex-Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

This was on a pro-Lisbon basis and although his seat was lost to anti-Lisbon Socialist Joe Higgins it will be a some comfort to him to know Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald also lost out.