FINE GAEL HAS selected Minister of State European Affairs and incumbent TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Senator Barry Ward to contest the Dún Laoghaire constituency in Dublin.

The party has selected seven candidates for the next general election so far, in five constituencies. Carroll MacNeill and Ward are joining the ticket in the South Dublin constituency for the second time in a row.

Government has remained adamant that it will see out it’s term until March 2025, although questions about the potential for an earlier election were raised again last week after Cabinet announced it was bringing the Budget forward, a week earlier, in October.

The money ministers waved off any rumours of an early election and blamed the rescheduling on a double booking, as both Finance minister Jack Chambers and Minister for Expenditure Paschal Donohoe are attending European council meetings on the original date.

Though there’s said to be no election on the horizon, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. A meeting tonight in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire, chaired by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, saw both candidates selected.

Carroll MacNeill, who first elected during the last election in 2020, was selected by members in the strong Fine Gael constituency. The junior minister was elected to the Dáil just a few months after her first election as a councillor in 2019.

“I look forward to engaging with everyone and to ask for their number one vote to return me as their TD for the second time,” she said this evening.

Barry Ward, who previously served as a councillor for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, was elected as a senator for the party in 2020 on the Industrial and Commercial Panel. He will  be running in the constituency for the second time.

Ward, who is the party’s spokesperson on justice, ran unsuccessfully in 2020 for a seat in the Dáil. Speaking this evening, however, Ward said that he’s confident Fine Gael can win two seats in Dún Laoghaire in the next election.

“We have a good strong team here and we need to turn that into Dáil seats. In the meantime, my work continues in Leinster House and throughout our fine constituency,” he said.