Mary Butler becomes first new Fianna Fáil female TD since 2007

With a tricolour draped around her, Fianna Fáil’s Mary Butler was lifted shoulder high as she topped the poll in Waterford.

The first-time candidate received 10,603 first-preference votes, putting her over the line on the first count and beating off well-known sitting TDs John Halligan and John Deasy.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, she said she was “thrilled” to top the poll and in doing so becomes the first new Fianna Fáil female elected since 2007.

The new TD will now enter Leinster House, but her ambitions do not end on the backbenches. She is set to be a key member of the parliamentary party in the coming years.

The married mother of three children, between the ages of 10 and 22, sees a future around the cabinet table and would love to be given the challenge of the transport portfolio if Fianna Fáil enter government.

The result in the previous election was a major blow for Fianna Fáil who were left without Dáil representation in Waterford for the first time since 1927.

During her campaign, she admitted that the party were “toxic” back in 2011, however she firmly believed there was a seat to win back.

“I worked very hard in Waterford. There is a good strong Fianna Fáil vote in Waterford, the most important thing was to try to win that vote back,” she said.

She was selected to run at the party convention which she said was “tough” to get through and this prepared her for the campaign battle.

Ms Butler who worked part-time in a jewellery shop in the city, passed the quota earning 20% of first-preference votes.

The Portlaw resident was first elected onto Waterford City and County Council in 2014 and like in the general election, she received phenomenal support claiming 20.5% of the first-preference votes. The community activist had campaigned mainly on housing issues and the cuts to services at Waterford Regional Hospital.

She had also promised to do more for Waterford which she claimed had suffered because of strong ministerial representation from neighbouring counties. “We lost our VEC headquarters to Wexford, we have a minister there. The WIT issue around university status, I don’t honestly believe that we would ever have been linked to Carlow only that they had strong ministerial representation,” she said.

Ms Butler managed to see off Fine Gael minister of state Paudie Coffey and Labour backbencher Ciara Conway who failed to get re-elected in the constituency.

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