*Cathal Crowe TD (FF) with party stalwart Francie Daly. Photograph: Joe Buckley
IN POLITICS since bursting on the scene as a twenty one year old in 2004, Cathal Crowe TD (FF) said his campaign to get re-elected to the Dáil was unquestionably the toughest.
Twenty seven days out from polling day, Crowe’s mother-in-law Mary Fehily (72) was killed in tragic circumstances when a car mounted the pavement in Charleville after she purchased a lotto ticket to support the local GAA club.
After retaining his seat as a TD, Cathal dedicated the success to Mary. He said, “It was quite difficult on a personal level. Above all I’m a family man and we had a traffic bereavement in the campaign, I loved my mother in law dearly and I had to be there to support my wife Maeve during a very difficult time so it was only right to stand down the campaign to allow us mourn, have a funeral, it was the right thing to do but it meant canvassing couldn’t happen.
“I love politics, one of my favourite things is electioneering and meeting people on the door but I had a heavy heart during this campaign given we went from a funeral back into a campaign, it was difficult but I have the most incredible family and supporters who really doubled down in the past three weeks to make sure we canvassed every corner of the county, we managed to canvass some areas twice as you witnessed yourself in O’Briensbridge”.
Crowe continued, “I was pleased with the response on the canvass, we were challenged on the doors in some places but people were very polite. I felt the campaign was going well but I knew it was a very crowded field. I didn’t expect to get elected five years ago, I was energetic and I think in ways it was similar to Joe Cooney this time, it was a short burst whereas for this election I was canvassing in March to June seven nights a week along with the local elections, we had a small break in June for a few weeks but we went straight back into it and it was anything but a short campaign, it has been a long political year and it’s even tougher for people facing into a Seanad campaign who’ve already had a local and General election but politics is something I’m passionate about and still have the energy for”.
He was the second candidate elected behind his running mate Timmy Dooley (FF), the duo were the only duo to surpass the quota of 12,182. “As a party we have long aspired to have two seats in the county, the last time was in 2011, almost 14 years ago. At one point for this election, we may have even been in the hunt for three seats but as the field became more crowded then two seats looked more realistic but you can never assume that can happen. It was an absolute battle, Timmy, Rita and I slogged it out to make sure the votes transferred, we canvassed the entire county apart from the home patch of each other”.
Even though he had a higher first preference vote in 2020 he didn’t pass the quota, a dip of 94 votes may have been recorded this time round but he pointed to increases in Shannon and West Clare as satisfactory aspects. “I was very pleased with my vote, I was down thirty or so (91) votes in the county which to me is a really good performance. In front of me, I had no opponent the last time in front of me until I hit Clarecastle, this time I had five opponents in that same geographical space, I had a lot of pressure on me and always as an incumbent there is a bit more pressure always but I was standing on my own record and people thankfully appreciated that and I knew I was doing my best for the county. The polls from the tallies showed Donna McGettigan and Joe Cooney were doing well in my own area so it was a pressurised election and unfortunately there was people telling people in my area that I was as safe as houses when I wasn’t. Overall, it was a solid performance, I had pretty much the same vote but I improved in Shannon Town and West Clare”.
With Fianna Fáil electing 48 of the 174 TDs, they are on course to be the lead partner of any coalition. The Meelick native is of the view they will again join up with Fine Gael. “Things worked well with Fine Gael in the last Government, many in both parties doubted if it could work but I got to work with many decent people like Joe Carey in the Dáil, we could find common ground with TDs in Fine Gael but we were distinct in other ways. There’s three options as I see it, Labour, Social Democrats and Independents, we will certainly need the support of one if not two of those groupings, recent trends are that Governments try to last for five years and we’ve gone a long way from the 1980s where we had two elections in the space of nine months in 1982”.
As it stands, Micheál Martin (FF) is most likely to be Taoiseach, he said no Government will be formed before Christmas. According to Crowe this is not down to a lack of urgency but rather a need to reach agreement among the various parties. “I think the efforts are most likely underway. I know the talks will be underway this week, we’re meeting as a parliamentary party tomorrow at 12pm in Dublin and so too are Fine Gael and Labour, I expect talks will gather pace and start off. There’s two things to it really, there’s agreeing a Programme for Government on what policies we agree on and what legislation we agree on but the second thing is the political offices that can be shared, I think the latter is the easier part because it’s people and positions, I’ve seen over my four terms on Clare County Council that the personnel element can be agreed with some relative ease. The last Programme for Government took several weeks to piece together, it was a great document, the outgoing Government delivered almost ninety percent of the last Programme for Government, you could argue that the Programme for Government is nearly more important than some other State documents like the Budget or the National Development Plan, it will take Ireland through the next five years on laws, capital plans and budgets”.
With two Fianna Fáil TDs elected in Clare, the prospect of a Minister from the county is certainly strengthened. Both Dooley and Crowe are held in high esteem by Martin which poses the possibility of a senior and junior Ministry. “I don’t know what the chances are, this will be a call for our party leader. If I’m asked to serve in a post of Minister at Cabinet or a Minister of State I will relish and give it 110% as I’ve done with everything in my political career but I know Timmy Dooley and Joe Cooney will do the same. We don’t know, it is out of our hands, I’d be very respectful of the post of Taoiseach so I won’t meddle in it.
“I hope my track record nationally and locally will at some stage be considered in the appointment of positions but there will be many TDs from around the country laying claim in a right to be a Minister, I don’t think that is necessarily how it works, we must have cognisance of the make-up of Government, there’s the geography and gender to come into it, different skillsets and expertise, the very difficult thing then for a party leader which applies for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is when you already have a Minister within their ranks, do you hold onto all of them, move them around or demote two to make space for others, they are the really difficult decisions, sometimes politics is a waiting game but if it is my time I will gladly do my best for county and country but it is in the hands of the party leader,” Cathal told The Clare Echo.
