Maura Hopkins vows to battle against prime land grab

It’s an unusual tactic for a Government party candidate to adopt but vowing to vote against the Government seems to be working for Maura Hopkins.

The 30-year-old Roscommon county councillor is waiting, like the rest of her county, to see if a Government appointed boundary review commission will recommend the transfer of a chunk of prime business and industrial land, complete with around 7,000 inhabitants, to neighbouring Westmeath on the basis that it is essentially a spillover from Athlone.

Environment Minister Alan Kelly put the process in train, leaving Taoiseach Enda Kenny at pains to say whatever recommendations are made will not be legally binding and will be “dealt with politically”.

But so far, dealing with it politically has meant extending the deadline for the commission’s report from a sensitively timed February 29 to a safer March 31. None of which gives rise to much confidence among voters.

In steps Hopkins to try to inject a little certainty into the proceedings. If she gets a seat for Fine Gael, if Fine Gael get into government, if the commission recommends the land grab, and if the government of the day approves the recommendation, then the first major act of the whippersnapper candidate will be to sacrifice the party whip by voting a resolute no.

Such audacity — and Enda appears to love it. He had Hopkins introduce him at the party’s Ard Fheis last month and his praise of her when he made a pit stop at her hometown of Ballaghaderreen last week left the otherwise unflappable candidate blushing.

She carries a lot of the party’s hopes on her shoulders in this traditionally volatile constituency which since 1992 has been chopped and changed from Roscommon alone to Longford-Roscommon, to Roscommon-South Leitrim and now to Roscommon-Galway.

A three-seater, it was a happy place for Fine Gael in 2011 when two of the seats went to the party, one for Denis Naughton and one for Frank Feighan, while the third went to Independent Luke Ming Flanagan.

But the uproar over the closure of the emergency department at Roscommon Hospital made Naughton jump overboard and he is now running as an independent, and it made Feighan resolve to retire when the Government’s term ended, knowing his vote would be devastated this time round.

For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE

Meanwhile, Flanagan became an MEP and was replaced by Independent Michael Fitzmaurice who ran on the turf-cutters’ platform that was such a big issue for his predecessor.

Now Naughten, who, his posters keep reminding us, “Keeps His Promises”, and Fitzmaurice, who hasn’t made any touchstone promises to be tested, are expected to retain their seats, leaving just one to fight for.

Fianna Fáil are in disarray over the addition of Shane Curran to the ticket after the selection convention chose Eugene Murphy, and while Labour’s John Kelly claims to have the ear of Alan Kelly on the land grab issue, he may not have even his own mother’s vote as the sitting senator is in competition with his sister, Anne Farrell, who is running for Renua in the same constituency.

Sinn Féin’s Claire Kerrane, the Green Party’s Miriam Kennessy, and Eddie Conroy of the AAA-PBP complete the line-up, but their challenge is unlikely to survive beyond the first few counts.

So Hopkins is looking like the one to save the day for Fine Gael, and if the electorate was confined to her home town, polling day would be surplus to requirements.

Despite being an only child from a “quiet family” with no history of public representation, Hopkins greets every person she meets by name and most reply with vigorous hugs.

Matching names and faces is a particular feat today as she’s left her glasses behind and forgotten to install her contact lenses.

“I thought I put them in,” she chides herself for letting the intense schedule distract her. “It’s crackers.”

Just one man has a bone to pick with her, tackling her about her failure so far to get his local road widened and declaring he’ll have to shift his vote to Sinn Féin this time, but even he ends up apologising for “taking away from the positivity around her” as he puts it.

An occupational therapist who has worked primarily with the rehabilitation of stroke victims, Hopkins took a career break last September and has been on the campaign trail ever since.

But she says it’s not so much the last six months that has cemented her recognition factor but the six years she spent working in the local Supervalu during school and college.

“On the ham and red meat counter,” she says. “I loved it. My mother sent me up the town one day and said don’t come back without a job. It was the best thing ever. I got to know everyone,” she says.

Of course, Ballaghaderreen, where she has set up an office in the former Moynihan’s bike shop where she got her very first pink bicycle and which, like so many other small local businesses is now closed, is only one small part of a diverse constituency and Hopkins has been working hard to broaden her recognition factor and her relevance.

Her director of elections is, helpfully, from the newly added East Galway side of the constituency — Dr John Barton, recently retired cardiologist from Portiuncula Hospital and long time outspoken critic of the failings in the health services.

Hopkins has made health the focal point of her campaign and she wants extended opening hours at the urgent care centre that replaced the A&E at Roscommon Hospital, night-flying capacity for the air ambulance that was made permanent last year, more ground ambulances and a branch of the National Rehabilitaiton Hospital established locally.

She also wants the preservation and improvement of services at Portiuncula Hospital which has carried an added workload since the curtailments at Roscommon.

All of which would require more investment at a time when Health Minister Leo Varadkar has declared, to paraphrase, additional resources make hospitals lazy.

Hopkins chooses her response carefully. “You can’t just put money into health services without looking at how we can deliver them more efficiently,” she says. But she is equally careful to make clear that she doesn’t accept Leo’s logic. “But no, I don’t believe we have dealt with the capacity issues in the health services.”

So she might lose the whip, or she might keep it and crack it under Varadkar’s feet. Either way, Hopkins could prove a lively addition to the Fine Gael parliamentary party. But back canvassing in Supervalu store today, it’s all about the locals, her relationship with whom is marked by intimacy and good humour.

“How’s it going?” a man inquires. “Crackers,” Hopkins tells him. “Ah don’t be talking about Shane Curran,” the man quips. A diplomatic Hopkins won’t let the barb pass. “Sure we must all be mad doing this,” she says.

People don’t holler their good wishes across the aisles; they take her aside, head bowed in close, and tell her their personal stories.

This is no whirlwind canvass; it’s a steady, gentle breeze. Other campaign teams would be tapping their feet, drumming their fingers and making elaborate gestures towards their watch but Hopkins’ helpers are used to this pace. “You don’t aim to get anywhere fast with Maura,” smiles one. Except, perhaps, to the Dáil.

For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE