Cuffe hoping return to Brussels will be plain sailing and not a bridge too far

Ciaran Cuffe MEP on a Dublin Bay Cruise to launch his re-election campaign. Picture: Jim Berkeley

It's 11am on a Thursday morning and Ciarán Cuffe is on a boat.

Elected on a Green Wave in 2019, he has seemingly decided to lean into the maritime imagery, even with the pitfalls contained therein.

The Green Party MEP for Dublin has decided to use the St Bridget, one of Dublin Bay Cruises' vessels, as the site to launch his campaign for re-election to the European Parliament. It's not the whole boat, though, so perplexed tourists raise eyebrows as he poses for photos on the quay before boarding and heading to the front of the boat as it departs Sir John Rogerson's Quay in the heart of the capital.

Here we are in the glorious sunshine as the 2019 poll-topper points out the parts of Dublin Port that he believes could be used for housing or public amenities, about how a wastewater plant is constructed or what might be done with the old Pigeon House Hotel.

A group of local election candidates and party activists have come along for the journey to Dun Laoghaire and the mood is upbeat as a party photographer snaps away and the boat cuts its way down the coastline and the early morning haze begins to lift. Inside, there is a section cordoned off, though a small group of students down the back of the boat is intrigued enough to wander close to the velvet rope and a couple stationed on the deck above seems deep in discussion about what could possibly be happening on the bow of a boat they've paid to take them around the coast as part of their holiday.

Leaving port for a Dublin Bay Cruise to launch his election campaign, Green Party MEP Ciaran Cuffe with local election candidates councillor Donna Cooney, Donnacha Geoghegan, councillor David Healy, councillor Lauren Tuite and Conor Dowling.

As we pass those icons of the Dublin skyline, the Poolbeg towers, the long-time former councillor points in behind them at the waste-to-energy plant and talks about how the arms of Europe should be used to ensure the facility is finally utilised to heat the city's buildings akin to district heating systems seen across the continent. He speaks of a European fund for housing that could be drawn down by member states to tackle housing crises, of how the city should pursue a development model more rooted in Berlin that Boston - dense but navigable.

When he steps back inside to formally launch the campaign, Mr Cuffe speaks in glowing terms about the Green influx of MEPs in 2019 and how that led to the bargaining power to affect change and pass the Green New Deal. However, he catches himself as he explains that that deal is in fact a number of pieces of European legislation which are in the process of being enacted across the continent.

"I can see your eyes are beginning to glaze over," he jokes, but the digression probably illustrates a challenge that all incumbent MEPs face - selling your work in what is a very labyrinthine institution. 

It is harder to go to the doors and tell people that you have done what needs to be done in Europe - met with people, listened, cajoled, negotiated, found your way onto committees and into rapporteur roles and led legislation - than to go to the doors and tell people what you will do if elected.

He is keen to play it down, but the former junior minister is from an impressive political stock which includes both the first Prime Minister of Newfoundland and a current US Presidential candidate. 

Mr Cuffe's mother was Patricia Skakel whose sister Ethel married a law student by the name of Robert F Kennedy. Robert F Kennedy Jr has become known for his anti-vaccine conspiracies and his run for the White House in this year's elections as an independent. 

Mr Cuffe says he has not compared campaigning notes with his cousin and says that his family is "not how I brand myself".

In the boat's inner cabin as we round the Great South Wall, Mr Cuffe tells the Irish Examiner that he wants to be considered "an effective lawmaker". He points to his time as the lead negotiator on the recently-passed Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and says that the public should demand those they send to Europe are there to work on laws.

"You can be a campaigner with a megaphone, you can be a lawmaker, you can be a bit of both, but we do need lawmakers at this moment in Europe," he says.

With four seats up for grabs and three returning MEPs, the Dublin constituency will be a battle on the high seas, if you will.

Reports of a private poll this week put Mr Cuffe in a contest to remain in his seat, but he will know that it will not be all as smooth sailing as this journey to the south of the county.