Allen publicly backs just one of two FG candidates in his area

LONG-SERVING Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen has given a public endorsement to just one of the two candidates in the Cork North Central constituency where he is bowing out of politics.

The outgoing TD announced his plan not to contest the election last month on health grounds, having already been selected alongside Cork County Council member Pat Burton in December.

Although he has denied it, there were suggestions his announcement was prompted by the addition to the ticket by FG headquarters of city councillor Dara Murphy, whose comments about Allen last November angered the veteran politician.

Mr Murphy had suggested that Mr Allen’s role as Dáil Public Accounts Committee chairman had distracted him from the constituency and the party should be running a younger candidate. Mr Murphy, who was the city’s lord mayor for a year up to last summer, is aged 40, while Mr Allen is 66.

The retired TD’s message urging Number 1 votes for Burton is in a flyer for the candidate posted in recent days through letter boxes in one half of the constituency.

The party’s strategy is for the Blarney-based councillor to target voters west of a line through Shandon and Blackpool in the city and in western parts of the constituency, while Mr Murphy is focusing his efforts east of that line, including his own north-east ward of the city.

Mr Allen said the flyer went out in the area that Pat Burton has been allocated but, asked if he intended giving similar endorsement on literature for Dara Murphy, he said he had no plans to do so.

“I did it for Pat Burton, I’m operating in that area of the city myself and I live there, and I will keep to that area,” he said.

Mr Allen stressed the message asks voters in that side of the constituency to give their No 2 vote to Dara Murphy. He said Mr Burton’s campaign had asked him to back their candidate a fortnight ago and he had approved the wording.

Dara Murphy said yesterday that, despite appearances, the outgoing FG TD is not endorsing only Pat Burton, even though his campaign is not circulating similar flyers.

“It’s not something we have thought about to be honest, but the flyer in that part of the constituency shows that Bernard supports the party decision that we split the constituency [geographically],” he said.

Earlier yesterday, however, FG’s Cork North Central director of elections Owen Cafferkey told the Irish Examiner he had sanctioned the flyer and that 6,000 to 7,000 with Mr Allen’s endorsement were to be circulated on behalf of each candidate.

Last week’s Irish Examiner/RedC poll in Cork North Central showed Mr Murphy pipping Mr Burton on first preferences by 14% to 13%, but the county councillor being eliminated later in the count and his transfers helping Murphy to secure the second of the four seats.

It suggested outgoing Labour Party TD Kathleen Lynch would win the first seat, falling just short of a quota with 19% of first preferences.