Wall keeps Labour going in Kildare South

AFTER an eight year gap Mark Wall (54) gave Labour back its seat in Kildare South, and has kept it in the family, following his father Jack (79) who served as TD for the constituency for almost 20 years from 1997 to 2016.

Coincidentally, the Athy man will also do as his dad did, by swapping the prefix Senator for Deputy as he had served in the Seanad for the last five years, having been pipped to the final seat in 2020 by Independent Cathal Berry.

He was selected for that seat on the Industrial and Commercial panel, and served as the Labour spokesperson on Defence, Tourism and Sport – a portfolio well suited to Kildare.

In this year’s election he was neck and neck for the final seat with the terribly unlucky fellow Senator Fiona O’Loughlin, but began to shade it in the 10th count when he got three times the transfer (1,239) from the eliminated Social Democrat candidate Chris Pender than his fellow Newbridge native O’Loughlin (408).

This was compounded by the elimination of Berry at the next round of voting, and by the time Martin Heydon topped the poll in the 12th, the only reason it went one further was because his surplus of 630 was greater than the 615 gap between Wall and O’Loughlin.

Senator Wall attended Churchtown NS, then Scoil Eoin before getting a diploma in Marketing and Business Studies at CIT in Carlow (now SETU).

He was first elected to Kildare County Council in 2009, and served as Mayor of Athy for a year in 2012, before being Mayor of Kildare the following year.

In his acceptance speech in Punchestown, he commiserated with the disconsolate O’Loughlin, understanding what it feels like to lose two general elections in a row (Wall was beaten in 2016 and 2020), but was delighted to share it with his father Jack, and was also made mention to his late brother John.

He now joins veterans Sean O’Fearghail (FF) and Martin Heydon (FG), and fellow newcomer Sinn Fein’s Shonagh Ni Raghallaigh as the four representatives in Dail Eireann for Kildare South.