European hopefuls face lack of recognition

Mary Fitzpatrick smiles down in splendid isolation from the ESB poles of Main Street, Swords. She is alone among Euro election candidates in occupying high vantage on the thoroughfare. All the other posters are for the locals, candidates of a lesser political god, but perhaps one that has far more relevance to the lives of the voters.

If you?re looking for the smallest hit of economic blues skies, then you could do worse than start in this town with a population of 42,738, as per the last census. Nobody is using terms like ?recovery? or ?lift-off?, but there are a few straws in the wind pointing towards better times.

House building is up off its knees in this locale. A new development of 400-500 houses by Gannon Homes is taking shape. Ryanair is opening an office up the road in the Airside Retail Park, creating 200 jobs. In the twin-track recovery that is under way, Swords is definitely in the fast lane.

?Over the last six months or so it has taken off somewhat,? local auctioneer Alan Redmond says of the property market. ?Prices are being exceeded because there is a shortage of supply and the apartment market is taking off as well, in both sales and rental.?

There are, of course, enduring problems at the other end of the market, with a housing waiting list of over 7,000 in Fingal, of which Swords is the principal hub.

There is no typical enclave for the Dublin constituency in the European elections, but Swords? slow rise from the depths of recession does illustrate how things are slightly different within the Pale. What little pick-up there has been is most noticeable here.

Will any of that matter in the election? Highly unlikely. In logical terms, the government parties could lay claim on having turned the economy around, but logic is a stranger to elections.

Elsewhere, signs of that vital yet indefinable quality ? confidence ? can be seen. A local paper, the North County Leader, put together a feature article to celebrate 20 years of the Fingal Chamber of Commerce. What started out as a four-page feature mushroomed to 16 pages to accommodate all the adverts vying for space. Go back a few years, and you?d have been hard-pressed to get anybody to advertise.

?Confidence is creeping back,? says Tony Lambert, chief executive of the chamber. ?We still have the usual problems, particularly with credit, but things are definitely moving in the right direction.?

Here, as in most towns, it is the local elections that have far greater prominence. Down on Main Street, the Fine Gael local candidates share space on single posters; maybe their internal relations are more harmonious, or maybe there?s just more of them about right now. Another outfit sharing a poster are the two candidates for the United Left, but their poster also finds room for a former ULA persona who is not running, Clare Daly.

Daly is popular in these parts, and her pictorial endorsement might snaffle a few votes for colleagues Declan McCool and Ken Doyle. The gimmick brings to mind a Euro election of 10 years ago, when Fianna F?il posters found space for Bertie Ahern?s smiling face.

Retail in Swords has suffered as much as elsewhere. Empty units sit in the two small, original shopping centres off Main Street. The town has been saved from the scourge of high-street retailers ? the out-of-town shopping centres ? by virtue of the fact that here, the out-of-town centre is in the middle of town. Having the Pavilion Shopping Centre, which employs about 2,000, on your doorstep certainly takes the bare look off the retail dip.

Despite these stray green shoots, the pain has not gone away for most. That, however, is unlikely to impact on the Euros to the extent that might be expected in a national election. After all, the biggest factor of European elections tends to be the personalities of the runners and riders. There are no big Euro personalities this time around. None of the three who won seats in 2009, Gay Mitchell, Proinsias De Rossa, and Joe Higgins, are running.

On his election to the D?il three years ago, Higgins passed his seat on to party colleague Paul Murphy. Higgins?s vote last time was highly personal. He had lost his D?il seat in 2007, before the economic collapse, and his Euro election was nearly a sympathy vote for one whose dark prophesies through the excesses of the Celtic Tiger had come true. Murphy, however, is no Higgins, and won?t get elected.

Emer Costello will find it hard to hold on to the seat last won by De Rossa. Her party, Labour, is in the doghouse with the electorate. All that might save her is a big or loud personality, something with which she is not endowed. She will require luck and favour from transfers to make it across the line.

Fine Gael?s Brian Hayes is likely to take the seat vacated by Mitchell. Hayes has acquired a national profile, and Fine Gael should hold on to the seat, even allowing for the mid-term anger directed at government.

After that, it gets interesting. Hands up who had ever heard of Lynn Boylan until recent weeks? The Sinn F?in candidate topped the first Millward Brown poll of the campaign, coming in at 20%, but has since been hauled back to the fringes of the pack. She is bucking the ?personality? trend of Euro elections, surfing a wave of popularity being enjoyed by the Shinners.

Nessa Childers is making hay on the popularity of independents this time round. Her father served as president, her grandfather was executed in the War of Independence, and she herself will, in her own small way, break new ground if she manages to get elected. She currently serves for the abolished Leinster constituency, where she won the seat under the Labour banner. Some of her popularity is undoubtedly attributable to her decision to leave Labour when the cuts got to be too much to bear.

Eamon Ryan and Mary Fitzpatrick are tarnished by the economic collapse. Ryan is attempting a resurrection for the Greens, and Fitzpatrick is best remembered as the Fianna F?iler who shared a constituency with Bertie Ahern, wherein she regularly got it in the neck from the Drumcondra mafia. Both are serious politicians, but it remains to be seen whether they can escape the past of their respective parties. People Before Profit?s Brid Smith is also running.

So that?s it. The smart money says Hayes is home. Trends in recent elections, and the more recent travails of Gerry Adams, suggest Boylan will be hauled back by polling day, yet she is still a better bet than the rest to take the second seat.

After that it?s up for grabs between Childers, Ryan, Fitzpatrick, and Costello. A value bet on Ryan might be worth the punt.

Dublin line-up

There are 12 candidates competing for three seats in the Dublin constituency:

Brian Hayes (Fine Gael): The current junior minister in the Department of Finance.

Emer Costello (Labour): A sitting MEP who was not elected but was co-opted by her party to replace Proinsias De Rossa when he stepped down in February 2012.

Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna F?il): A member of Dublin City Council since 2009, she failed in her general election bids in 2011 and earlier in 2007 when then taoiseach Bertie Ahern, ensured his transfers went to her party rival, Cyprian Brady.

Eamon Ryan (Green Party): After four years as communications minister during his party?s coalition with Fianna F?il, he lost his D?il seat in the 2011 General Election.

Nessa Childers (Non Party): Currently an MEP for the Ireland East constituency which will be abolished after these elections, she started her political career in the Labour Party before joining the Greens, where she won a seat in the local elections of 2004. She later rejoined Labour to contest the 2009 European elections, but resigned from the party in 2013.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn F?in): A relative unknown in Dublin politics, she moved to the capital in 2009 after contesting the 2007 general election and the 2009 local election in South Kerry.

Paul Murphy (Socialist Party): He has been a member of the European Parliament since 2011 when he replaced his party leader, Joe Higgins, on his election to the D?il.

Br?d Smith (People Before Profit): A serving councillor, she has been a trade union activist who has been involved in campaigns against bin charges and the property tax and is now standing on a platform of opposing water charges.

Thomas Darcy (Direct Democracy Ireland): A former property developer who has spent four years fighting AIB in court following the decline of his business, he is asking people to ?stand behind him as he fights the criminals in the banks and courts?.

Raymond Whitehead (Direct Democracy Ireland): The founder of the new party which aims to give the people more power of referendum, describes himself as an entrepreneur, a former, 400-metre, national champion runner and yoga teacher. He is hoping that running two candidates in the constituency can raise the profile of the new movement.

Damon Wise (Fis Nua): The ?new vision? candidate has appeared in media to discuss the problems his family has faced with autism, and is running to change the attitudes towards disabilities.

Jim Tallon (Non Party): Little is known about the candidate who has contested several elections in several constituencies as an independent, since 1981 ? never successfully.

? Mary Regan