Trolley Watch injures Fine Gael support

As he sat in a quiet corner of the count centre around 1am on Sunday, Michael Noonan could have been forgiven for feeling bewildered.

A finance minister hailed by his peers in Europe for the economic miracle they saw blossom in Ireland was now back to basics — waiting for the final sixth-count declaration which would see him elected with cabinet colleague Jan O’Sullivan, neither reaching the quota.

O’Sullivan’s mood was in absolute contrast.

Her jubilation was understandable as when box after box disgorged its cargo, the tally people began to give dire predictions regarding her chances.

Willie O’Dea was back on familiar ground at the top of the poll, one vote short of 13,000. During the campaign, recurring media reports claimed O’Dea’s canvassers were urging Fianna Fáil voters to give their number two to O’Sullivan to try and spike the onward march of Maurice Quinlivan of Sinn Féin.

Willie O'Dea celebrates after being elected on first count for #lkcy. #GE16 pic.twitter.com/xhyyvwZgXe

— Newstalk Elections (@ElectionNT) February 27, 2016

But O’Dea’s surplus broke evenly between O’Sullivan, Noonan, Kieran O’Donnell (Fine Gael), Quinlivan, and Cian Prendiville, AAA.

In fact O’Dea’s surplus went more to Quinlivan (633) than to O’Sullivan (611).

O’Donnell was being favoured to hold onto his seat at the expense of O’Sullivan as the Sinn Féin man took the second seat.

At the end of the day it was Prendiville’s transfers that put clear water between O’Sullivan and O’Donnell.

It was widely thought that Quinlivan and O’Sullivan would go toe-to-toe for the fourth seat, but the Sinn Féin vote proved much stronger, getting the diligent councillor home behind O’Dea.

Fine Gael will wonder how they could manage to lose a seat when Limerick appeared to have done much better than other parts of the country with regard to employment and services.

But they need look no further than the emergency department of University Hospital Limerick and the powerful nursing union the INMO for some of the answers.

Over the past number of years the INMO has relentlessly hammered the government with its powerful daily bulletin, otherwise known as Trolley Watch.

As a colleague remarked: “Sure, on a slow news day you need only click into Trolley Watch and you’ll get a story.”

Noonan and O’Sullivan have done trojan work in their respective departments. But much of their efforts went down the drain on those hospital trolleys.

It’s not as simple as that, and there were other issues.

But those trolley stories day after day were like Chinese torture.

Whoever takes the reins of government, they should heed one warning: Beware the INMO’s trolley watch.