DONEGAL PEOPLE are famously polite, so when the representative of the most unpopular government for decades comes looking for a vote in a byelection, they wouldn’t dream of slamming the door in his face.
Thus Senator Brían Ó Dómhnaill of Fianna Fáil received no rude rebuffs as he canvassed housing estates at Drumkeen, a few miles outside Stranorlar, last night.
The mood was more quizzical than hostile: Donegal people don’t do hostility, even in the depths of the worst recession in modern times. As the smell of evening cooking wafted through the hallway, the constituents of Donegal South West wanted to know: “What can you do for me?”
Clientelism in Irish politics is far from dead, at least as far as the clients are concerned. Voters take a utilitarian view: politicians are there to serve the people, so when is the council going to install new windows in our houses?
Ó Dómhnaill is a young man in a hurry. He is a keep-fit enthusiast and the training is proving useful as he races from door to door, with journalists clambering over fences in his wake.
There are 12 canvassers in the team and party organiser Vincent Carolan is pairing them off: one local with every “stranger”.
In line with Fianna Fáil’s standing in the opinion polls, Ó Dómhnaill is polite, almost diffident.
“Give me the highest preference you can,” he asks a voter who has been taking a circumspect approach to his plea for support.
An older woman recalls with nostalgia the straight-dealing days of Eamon de Valera: “There was no honky-tonk with him.”
The next senior citizen is more encouraging: “I wouldn’t have come to the door for any of the other candidates.” She is too feeble to go to the polls but will urge her family to vote FF.
Again and again he stresses on the doorsteps that as a Government TD he would have more power than a member of the Opposition.
The next house is also seeking help from the authorities.What exactly are your needs? the Senator asks. “Anything and everything,” comes back the reply.
We move on from St Brigid’s Crescent council estate to the private houses at Oakland Heights. “We will do our best, that’s all we can do,” a smiling woman says, ambiguously.
The candidate generally takes an indirect approach and his basic message is: “I work hard, I hold 45 clinics a month, with me you won’t go far wrong.”
The possibility of a cut in the pension keeps coming up. “I don’t believe it will happen,” the Senator says. The best news of the evening comes when a known Sinn Féin sympathiser indicates the possibility of switching to Fianna Fáil. The canvass team are practically whooping after the door closes.
But as they move about from house to house, a Sinn Féin van sweeps past, proclaiming the virtues of Senator Pearse Doherty from a loudspeaker.
The consensus among local observers is that the battle is between Ó Dómhnaill and Doherty for this seat with Fine Gael’s Barry O’Neill and Labour’s Frank McBrearty expected to put in strong showings.
All the people canvassed, virtually without exception, are service-oriented. They want results, whether it is a new kitchen in their council house or better broadband in the Donegal area. Ó Dómhnaill dutifully notes their requests and even makes a call or two back at his jeep. Mary Duffy, the Senator’s girlfriend for the past five years, is on the trail with him. So is local activist Joseph Brennan; indeed himself and Ó Dómhnaill are reminiscent of Sherpa Tenzing and Edmund Hillary as they try to scale the mountain before them. It’s 6.30pm but Ó Dómhnaill has miles to go before he sleeps. “Time is precious,” he says.
LOST AT SEA ROW FAMILY ASKS CANDIDATES TO MAKE POSITION CLEAR
THE FAMILY at the centre of the ombudsman’s Lost at Sea report has called on all parties in the Donegal South West byelection to declare their stand on the issue.
The ombudsman’s report, which recommended compensating the Byrne family from Donegal due to maladministration of the scheme, was rejected by the Oireachtas agriculture and fisheries committee three weeks ago.
Danny Byrne, who lost his father and brother, along with three crew members when the Skifjord sank in 1981, said he was calling on all candidates in the forthcoming byelection to “spell out clearly their position”.
The scheme was initiated by former minister for the marine Frank Fahey in 2001 to provide replacement tonnage for sunken vessels to encourage families to stay in fishing.
Some six applications were accepted from a total of 67. Two of Mr Fahey’s constituents in Galway West received 75 per cent or €2.1 million of the total funds. The Byrne family from Bruckless, Co Donegal, lodged a complaint after their late application to the limited scheme had been turned down.
“This scheme was designed to compensate families like us,” Mr Byrne said. “After a forensic examination of the scheme by ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, my mother and other members of the family were relieved that her office recognised our right to have been included in the scheme . . . We are disappointed that politics has got in the way of justice,” he said.
The subsequent decision to reject the recommendations has “serious consequences for the integrity and effectiveness the office”, Mr Byrne said, pointing out his statement had the support of Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins. However, only one party, Sinn Féin, had promised to implement the report in full, he said.
LORNA SIGGINS
