‘Forgotten county’ delivers a sharp reality check to all

“I CARRY the spirit of Michael Collins here with me,” loser Fine Gael candidate Barry O’Neill declared, and he was right — but only in the sense that he’d just been assassinated by an audacious Sinn Féin ambush.

The self-styled ‘Forgotten County’ of Donegal delivered a message to remember to all the main parties — and it’s a message none of them will like hearing.

The result may have been dire for Fianna Fáil, but it was also very bad news for Fine Gael and Labour.

Enda Kenny’s party could not even haul itself into second place on first preferences, while talk of the fabled “Gilmore Gale” that would whoosh Labour into previously unwinnable seats proved to be, well, overblown.

That Fianna Fáil’s vote would collapse to such an extent in one of its bedrock seats was hardly a surprise after the IMF national humiliation it had led the country to, and the result merely underscores the fact the once dominant party is now out of the power game for at least a decade once the New Year delivers the looming general election.

Labour’s larger-than-life candidate Frank McBrearty began the day in a sulk at his poor showing before managing to put a brave face on things when he belatedly showed up at the count centre.

But his failure to get above 10% of the vote is a sharp reality check for party leader Eamon Gilmore and his endlessly stated ambition to be the next Taoiseach.

Labour’s strategy of parachuting local “star” candidates like McBrearty into seats in parts of the country like the West and Midlands where it has always been weak was meant to ensure the party’s national surge would not be swept down the drain in large swathes of constituencies, like the Spring Tide of 1992 was.

But the dismal showing in Donegal South West highlights the uphill struggle Labour still faces even while it threatens to overtake Fine Gael as the country’s biggest vote-getter.

At least Labour was starting from a very low base, Fine Gael had no such excuse and not only floundered in third place behind Fianna Fáil, but saw their share of the vote drop significantly.

But from the moment Sinn Féin’s capable, but personality-lite standard-bearer, Senator Pearse Doherty, won his challenge forcing the Government to finally hold the by-election after 17 months of denying the people of Donegal full democracy, the momentum was behind him and the Shinners crushed all before them — it means they will hold the seat in the upcoming Dáil election, but the national significance will be limited.

Donegal South West was supposed to be one of the SF gains that would double the party’s Dáil representation in the 2007 election, but it didn’t happen and the Shinners actually lost a seat and were reduced to a rump of four TDs.

Now the party is making breakthrough predictions once again and national polls show its rejection of the main party consensus to get the deficit down to 3% by 2014 has a resonance with those shafted at the sharp end of the recession.

Again, this poses a tough dilemma for Labour as it has to watch its left-flank for SF advances, while at the same time trying to hold the middle ground of public sector workers who have effectively switched to it en-masse from Fianna Fáil.

FF campaign manager, Eamon Ó Cuív tried to put by-election spin on his party’s crushing defeat, but the level of public anger at the Government’s mishandling of the economic crisis, compounded by its inability to tell the truth of the shambolic IMF bailout meant FF never had a prayer.

But this did not stop Mr Ó Cuív pleading for such prayers when he implored voters to ask God to look kindly on old Erin in these grim times.

And look what happened — the very day after his appeal for divine intervention in the national crisis, the Greens effectively collapsed the Government and ensured a New Year election. However, Mr Ó Cuív was unable to say whether this meant God had swiftly answered the nation’s prayers to be rid of this administration when the question was put to him by the Irish Examiner.

God may not have spoken directly, but the people of Donegal did, and while they declared that Fianna Fáil is finished, they fired a warning shot that Fine Gael and Labour still have to work at winning the country’s trust.