Kildare North result marks end of era
New Kildare North TD Naoise Ó Cearúil and party
IT was the old Tory Enoch Powell who first coined the phrase “all political careers end in failure”, and so it was on day three of the Kildare North count, when Fine Gael grandee Bernard Durkan (79) lost his Dail seat for the first time in 42 years.
On the 12th count, after the distribution of Bill Clear’s impressive 5,458 votes, Reada Cronin (SF) became the third candidate to surpass the quota of 9,505, but her surplus was not enough for cover the gap between Durkan and fifth place Naoise O’Cearuil.
Earlier, the outgoing Minister for Transport from Sallins James Lawless (FF) was first across the threshold, topping the quota in the eighth count, to be followed by newcomer Aidan Farrelly from Clane who held impressively on to the seat of his outgoing boss Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats.
The 16 candidates took quite a while to weed out, and this was not helped by having the whole count suspended on Saturday.
Re-commencing at 9am on Sunday morning from scratch, Lawless wouldn’t be elected for almost 13 hours, and returning officer Mark Stafford suspended the count again at midnight after the distribution of Labour’s Angela Feeney with still only one candidate elected.
Going into an anticipated third day, Farrelly crossed the line on the 11th count, but the final result was not complete until 2.48pm when, on the 12th count and final Cronin surpassed the quota with 1,148 transfers from Clear.
With Durkan more than 1,500 votes adrift in sixth, both Naoise O’ Cearuil (FF) and Joe Neville (FG) were deemed elected without reaching quota.
This means that with Aidan Farrelly, Kildare North has returned three parliamentary first timers, while the county goes without a Durkan in the Dail for the first time in 42 years.
