Sinn Féin’s Pa Daly – ‘We shouldn’t have lost the seat in Listowel’

Sinn Féin Deputy Pa Daly feels his party consolidated its vote in the local elections despite losing a seat in Listowel but gaining one in west Kerry after more than 100 years.

“Locally, we started with four and we came back with four. We had a good victory in Cora Duibhne [Robert Brosnan]. We shouldn’t have lost the seat in the Listowel area. If we had retained that it would have been a relatively good election,” he said.

“Full credit goes to Robert and his team. Not only did he dig a vote out in Dingle where he is from, and Lios Póil where he is living, but he got a very good vote back in the Gaeltacht areas. He also got a good vote in Milltown. That’s because he was canvassing and working non-stop,” Deputy Daly said.

He explained that in the Kenmare LEA, the party’s general election vote held up. Cathal Foley lost his seat in Tralee where Paul Daly retained it keeping the party’s tally at two seats in Tralee LEA.

“I think we could have got a third seat in Tralee if the transfers had gone better. There is definitely a third seat there for us. Unfortunately, the vote didn’t split as evenly as we had hoped it would,” he said.

Deputy Daly said Sinn Féin will be holding a review of its elections in the coming weeks to assess the pluses and minuses of its performance.

“For any unelected candidate coming into a race, there is no substitute for hard work and Robert Brosnan showed that. Marion Falvey [Listowel LEA] would have been an excellent candidate but she just hit the crossbar,” he said.

Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald said in the aftermath of the local elections that the party had made some gains but these were modest.

She referenced how the ‘frustration and anger’ with government policy translated into votes for independents and others.

"We have to now prepare ourselves for the general election, whenever that will happen. We'll take time to reflect,” Ms McDonald said.

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