Senator on standby as midwife votes for Valentine’s Day delivery
Senator Michael McCarthy is under orders from his real director of elections — wife Nollagh— to postpone all canvassing for a few days after she gives birth to their second child.
The couple are expecting the new arrival on Valentine’s Day.
But Nollagh, who has worked as a midwife at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) for the past five years, knows better than most that babies have no respect for due dates.
“I just hope the delivery won’t be delayed and it won’t be on polling day. If I’m able to get out of bed I’ll vote, but hopefully it will be all over by then,” Nollagh said.
When she went into labour the last time with now 19-month-old son Odhran, Michael was in the Seanad in Dublin.
“At least he’ll be campaigning locally this time, so he’ll have no excuses for not getting back,” Nollagh said.
Michael said he didn’t know the gender of the new arrival and the couple hadn’t chosen any names yet.
“When my wife goes into labour I’ll be coming off the campaign trail to be with her. I’m under orders to postpone canvassing for a few days. We have other family on standby to go out canvassing,” Michael said.
The 34-year-old senator is hoping it will be third time lucky for him in the three-seater Cork South West constituency.
A recent in-house poll carried out by Fine Gael showed that they would capture two of the seats, with 42% of the vote and that McCarthy was running at 20%, which was higher than the two Fianna Fáil candidates Christy O’Sullivan and Denis O’Donovan.
McCarthy, who lives in Dunmanway, was elected to Cork County Council in 1999 and graduated to the Senate in 2002.
In his debut election of 2002, McCarthy came in sixth, polling 3,442 first preference votes. He did better in 2007 by coming fifth with 4,095 first preference.
However, he was still more than 3,000 first preferences behind Denis O’Donovan, who also failed to win a seat.
During that election FF’s Christy O’Sullivan topped the poll with 10,333 No 1s, while PJ Sheehan and Jim O’Keeffe grabbed the remaining two seats for FG. This time out both of them have retired and FG has new faces in the field.
Senator McCarthy will be hoping the opinion polls are right. The expected backlash against FF and the fact that Fine Gael will split their vote by running three candidates certainly leaves McCarthy in with a shout for the last seat.
Labour held a seat in the constituency from 1922 to 1981, but haven’t had a look-in since.
Senator McCarthy believes that Paddy Sheehan attracted a lot of Labour-orientated voters in the intervening years, but now that he is out of the running they are up for grabs again.
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