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Seán MacBrádaigh
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT ERODES CHANGE IS DUBLIN BAY SOUTH BY-ELECTION HAPPENING
BY SEÁN MacBRÁDAIGH
The results of July’s Dublin Bay South by-election, triggered by the resignation of disastrous former Fine Gael Housing Minister and local TD Eoghan Murphy, sees the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil-Green government living on borrowed time.
The by-election results confirmed that the process of political change, witnessed in last year’s historic general election, is ongoing with Fine Gael’s Dáil numbers further depleted and Fianna Fáil recording an historically dismal result.
Fine Gael’s James Geoghegan entered the by-election as the favourite to retain Murphy’s seat. However, his campaign was marred by issues around his political record, including membership of the right-wing Renua party and his work as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.
Geoghegan was Varadkar’s favoured candidate over former local Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell and divisions within the party were obvious before, during, and after the by-election. In the end, Geoghegan was overtaken by Labour’s Ivana Bacik and Fine Gael lost the seat they held here.
Fianna Fáil’s by-election campaign was an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end. Their efforts on social media were a recurring joke. Their candidate, Deirdre Conroy, performed miserably in TV and radio debates and her candidacy was marked by controversy around a blog she wrote on being a landlord, which included derogatory comments about her Latvian tenant.
Ivana Bacik was ahead of Geoghegan from early in the election count with transfers from Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan and Green Party candidate Claire Byrne ensuring her victory.
Bacik – the darling of the establishment media from early on – received a major boost from an Ipsos/MRBI poll in the week before voting. It was the only public poll conducted in advance of the election and assisted Bacik by placing her as the most likely candidate to beat the government and giving her much needed momentum in
