Michael Healy Rae support runs (6ft) deep
For a man who epitomises the mantra that all politics is local, it was no surprise that when we meet Michael Healy Rae just as he comes from a funeral.
“I had to go to Waterville [on the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry] because a friend of mine, Danny O’Mahony, died, and it was sad because I knew him an awful long time. He was 85, a great campaigner for us, a warrior, and a very nice man,” says Mr Healy Rae.
“When he was laid out inside the coffin last night, his family put a canvass card for me up in his hand, between his fingers, so everybody who came in, he was canvassing them for me.
“Even though the poor man was gone to his eternal walk, he was still working. It was very touching.”
So begins a day on the campaign trail with the Healy Raes, a political family loved and loathed in equal measure for their unapologetic ‘Kerry first, country second’ version of Irish democracy.
While the parish pump strategy is often ridiculed, it has served the high-profile dynasty well, with a Healy Rae being returned at every election since the late Jackie Healy Rae first donned his cap and strode purposely towards the nearest Kerry County Council voter in 1974 — some record, considering it stretches over more than 15 elections and three generations.]
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The Kerry-first policy hasn’t been bad for the county either, with Healy Rae Sr behind two controversial secret deals to keep consecutive Fianna Fáil-led boom-time governments afloat — rumoured to have been worth anywhere up to €100m in extra funds rerouted to the Kingdom.
While the family’s detractors note that some of this funding went through the council on which the Healy Raes have an ever-strong presence, it is undoubtedly a reason why the locals appear to adore them.
During a three-hour canvass of Tralee town, taking in hundreds of potential voters, just three people responded negatively to Healy Rae and his entourage of wife Eileen, 16-year-old son Kevin, and advisers. One man in the Greyhound Bar says he will “put you up on the fire place and take down JFK”, while SuperValu manager Tim Moynihan notes: “Michael’s not just a politician here, he’s a celebrity.”
Not that the TD himself believes any of it, of course. Against all evidence, Healy Rae tells a tale of fear, that he — one bookmaker has tipped him to win the most first preferences in Ireland — is in a dogfight to get over the line and that talk of a dynasty is a media invention.
The only way he will reclaim his Dáil seat, he says, is through hard work and local focus from all involved. In this life, and the next.
“I’ve a terrible problem with that [people saying his seat is safe],” he says. “In 2002, my father was after bringing tens of millions to Kerry. He came within 32 votes of losing. So it drives me mad.
“I hate that word ‘dynasty’ too, it’s rubbish. I was very fortunate my father was there, but I had to go out and get people to trust me. No Healy Rae’s lost an election, but I don’t want to be the first either. You don’t get handed it, you have to work for it.”
To underline the ‘no dynasty’ point, Healy Rae makes it clear he would “not in a million years” encourage any of his three sons and two daughters to enter politics “unless it is in them”, seemingly limiting the next political generation to his councillor nephew Johnny.
However, asked whether he intends to follow further in his own father’s footsteps by doing a post-election deal to prop up a cobbled-together coalition in return for extra funds for Kerry, a more nuanced response emerges. He initially changes the subject by labelling parties that rule out rivals before the election result is known as “stupid”, then notes that he would “have to get elected first” — something, he emphasises, eyes wide in apparent terror, that is far from certain.
Asked again, he says: “OK, hypothetically. Hypothetically. I have to answer every question honestly. The answer is anything I would ever do, any decision I would ever make, if it was good for Kerry, anything would be a possibility.
“Employment, infrastructure, broadband, our county has been neglected by this Government, so things like that would have to be addressed. But I wouldn’t come around saying: ‘Oh I’ll do this if I get that.’ That’s not the way. You should look at the situation as it evolves.”
Seemingly tacking on a postscript, he says that, that if a deal is done, “all I know is there’d be no criticism if it was for inner-city Dublin”.
The reluctance to specifically say support is there for anyone, at the right price, is a typical Healy Rae hand-strengthening trait.
But for Michael Healy Rae, it is also about forcing what he describes as “the most anti-rural Government in the history of the State” to address issues such as the closure of Garda stations and rural post offices, and a failure to spread jobs to struggling villages — a position he clearly feels his family are not given enough credit for.
While courteous, he bristles when the national portrayal of his family is raised. There is significant interest in his father’s political deals which are outside the FOI Act, and the family’s dazzling number of small businesses in the region.
Of equal national interest is the 2011 revelation a mystery 3,636 calls costing the public €2,600 were made from an Oireachtas phone over just 31 hours to help Michael Healy Rae win reality show (the money was repaid in 2011), as well as their views on loosening drink-driving restrictions and gun laws in rural areas.
These concerns have more to do with Dublin politicians and the media “looking down their nose” than any genuine concerns, says Healy-Rae.
As for the cap — which is supplied 20 a time in a bulk order from Quills — it is “just a cap, it’s only about keeping my head warm”, he says.
“The major parties and sections of the media would be happier if we didn’t exist. If some of the things written were about a coloured person they’d be prosecuted under the [Prohibition of] Incitement to Hatred Act, they’d be jailed.”
Asked if the situation is partially the result of the family deliberately playing down its intelligence to hoodwink opponents — Michael Healy Rae’s mother was fluent in six languages, including Arabic, for instance — he says “it doesn’t bother me; when someone insults us they also insult the people who back us”.
Ultimately, that’s the entire Healy Rae point. While national recognition would be welcome, loyalty and local interests are what will always come first — a link not even death’s scythe can cut.
“We have people out canvassing with us who have been canvassing for us since 1973. Every election. Sure didn’t I tell you, they’re still canvassing when they’re dead, never mind alive.”
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