O’Keeffe says he and fellow FF TD will lose seats

ONE of the country’s most outspoken politicians believes he will lose his Dáil seat and several of his Fianna Fáil colleagues will also fall victim to a public backlash against the party.

Deputy Ned O’Keeffe has predicted that at the next General Election he will lose the seat he has held in the Cork East constituency for the past 28 years.

He also predicted that his constituency running mate, Deputy Michael Ahern, could be a victim as well in the four-seater constituency.

“I believe there will be no FF seat in Cork East and instead there will be two Fine Gael, one Labour and one Sinn Féin person elected,” he said.

“We’re ruined. We have to believe the opinion polls after what happened in the Donegal by-election. I think there will be devastation in Fianna Fáil ranks and nothing has been done to prevent it. I blame it on the Minister for Finance,” Deputy O’Keeffe said.

A Red C poll taken last month showed that FF had 12.7% of the vote in Cork East. Labour topped the poll with 45.7% followed by FG at 30.6% and Sinn Féin at 8.9%.

If that poll is correct it would translate into two seats each for FG and Labour.

Most political commentators believe that Sean Sherlock (Lab) will top the poll and running mate John Mulvihill is in with a shot of a seat. Fine Gael will be hoping that Cllr Tom Barry and Deputy David Station will win two seats for them.

However, Cllr Mulvihill said he didn’t believe SF would claim a seat but that Ned O’Keeffe would be re-elected.

The Sinn Féin constituency spokesman Cllr Seamus Coleman said Youghal-based Cllr Sandra McLellan could take the last seat if their share of the vote came in at over 10%.

Meanwhile, Deputy Ahern said he would definitely be a candidate in the next election, denying rumours on Twitter.