Parties on election footing as Labour proposes Hannigan

With the scent of a possible general election in the air, opposition parties are getting organised at grassroots level. This week, the Labour Party headquarters organisation committee has recommended that Senator Dominic Hannigan allow his name to go forward to its Meath East general election selection convention. Last week, Meath county councillor Regina Doherty declared an interest in running for Fine Gael in Meath East, while her FG colleagues, Catherine Yore and Ray Butler, also have both expressed interest in running in Meath West. While the Government insists that it will run its full course, there is considerable dissent amongst its supporters in the Dail, with Mattie McGrath of Tipperary and Noel Grealish in Galway threatening to withdraw support over health cuts in their constituencies. Mr McGrath lost the Fianna Fail whip when he voted against the ban on stag hunting by the Ward Unions in June. The Government can count on the votes of 79 TDs, while the Opposition is sure of 75. The voting intentions of eight others, who have lost the Fianna Fail whip or are independent, are more difficult to predict. The situation has been made all the more knife-edged by the imposition of a ban on Dail pairings by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, now regarded as an 'own goal' as it almost prevented the Tanaiste Mary Coughlan from travelling to the US on an Enterprise Ireland education and jobs trip this week. Former enterprise minister, Labour's Ruairi Quinn, provided her with a pairing to allow her travel. The Labour Party has spent the last number of months examining the situation in Meath and informed party members of its analysis last week. It has recommended that the party run just one candidate in Meath East and has announced that Senator Hannigan should be that candidate. The selection convention is expected to be held in the next few weeks, and Senator Hannigan will formally be nominated to fight for a seat in Meath East. "I am delighted with this decision by the organisation committee," said Senator Hannigan, a former member of Meath County Council. "I would like to thank them for the time they have spent analysing the situation in Meath." Although the latest national opinion polls show Labour to be riding high, the party's own analysis in Meath suggests that they will have a tough fight to wrest a seat from Fianna Fail, who currently hold two out of the three seats, he says. "Our own internal polls over the summer would suggest that we are falling a bit short of the national average in Meath East," said Senator Hannigan. "That's no surprise, really, given the strength of the local Fianna Fail organisation." He said that if the people of Meath want to get rid of Fianna Fail, they needed to vote for Labour, and encouraged those who want to work for change to get in touch with his office. "We need as much help as we can get if we are to win a seat in Meath East," he said. That is not the view of the Sunday Independent, which ran an analysis of last week's TV3 poll in its weekend edition, predicting that only eight Fianna Fail seats were safe in the country, and none of them in Meath. In the red zone, it suggests that 31 deputies would not be re-elected, including Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey and Deputy Thomas Byrne; while Deputies Mary Wallace and Johnny Brady are in the 'amber alert' area, in danger of losing their seats. Apart from the overall opinion of the present Government, controversial local issues will have damaged Fianna Fail TDs in the Meath East and West constituencies, including the EirGrid planning application for a series of high tension electricity cables across the county, and the ban on the Ward Union Hunt.