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GE2024not donn yetLAST UPDATE | 1 Dec 2024
IT’S DOWN TO the wire in Wicklow for outgoing Health Minister Stephen Donnelly – but he’s not conceding just yet.
The Fianna Fáil TD says it is the combination of fewer seats and having to share them with Taoiseach Simon Harris that have made his position precarious.
Green Party TD Steven Matthews was the latest casualty in the constituency, failing to retain his seat on the eighth count.
Donnelly is currently sitting almost 1,300 votes behind fourth place Fine Gael candidate Edward Timmins.
Speaking to reporters at the the count centre in Greystones earlier, Donnelly thanked his campaigners and voters, but said he knew all along it would be a tough race.
“It’s going to be tight, obviously. Tighter than anyone would like. It was always going to come down to the last seat in Wicklow, so we’ll see how things go,” he said.
Asked how he feels about his position, Donnelly said: “We’ll just have to wait and see how the votes transfer.”
He said he was talking to party leader Micheál Martin earlier and by their estimation Fianna Fáil has had a “strong election”.
“We’ve returned a lot of TDs. We’ve got some fantastic new TDs who hopefully look like they’re going to be elected.”
The Wicklow constituency was altered in the boundary redrawings last year. It used to span the entire area of County Wicklow, but the Electoral Commission decided to put the area around Arklow town into a new Wicklow-Wexford constituency. Wicklow lost a seat in the process, going from five to four.
Harris topped the poll and was elected on the first count.
Donnelly says that even if his own vote wasn’t strong, the “government vote” in the constituency was.
“When you’re sharing a constituency and a hometown with a Taoiseach, and moving from a five-seater to a four-seater – put those two things together, obviously it creates a lot of pressure.
“I think we all knew it was going to come down to the final seat.”
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore and Sinn Féin TD John Brady will likely keep their seats in Wicklow, but that fourth seat is still up for grabs.
Fine Gael Councillor Edward Timmins is in the lead for it, but he’s fewer than a thousand votes ahead of Donnelly, so transfers could change this.
Asked if he still has a “fire in his belly”, Donnelly recounted his first election, which was the result of three days of counting.
He was first elected as an Independent in Wicklow in 2011, before co-founding the Social Democrats in 2015 and becoming one of its leaders.
However, Donnelly left his party for Fianna Fáil in 2017.
He became Health Minister in 2020 after being re-elected.
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Mehole, said he was doing an outstanding job.
@Shane O Mac: Me’Hole is a polished liar!
Not tight enough. Vote this mu###t out!
@Andrew Kenny: Agreed. This guy is a complete f**## b#*## suitcase
@Andrew Kenny: how do you vote someone out?
@Andy Dillon: by voting for someone else
@Bernard Connolly: I’m guessing by voting for the opposition
@Andy Dillon:
He doesn’t deserve a seat. State of our health system.
@Maniac 2000: until you’re brave enough to hold the poisin chalice yourself……
@Ian McDonald: poisin?
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: loves fish
Don’t worry Steve, the transfers will see you through..its what they do to keep you lot in. What a joke of a system.
@Basildon Joe: it’s a great system. Care to make a suggestion how it could be improved?
@Brendan Hill: One thing’s for sure: this site could be greatly improved by getting rid of the guy behind ‘Basildon Joe’ and 20 or so other profiles.
@Basildon Joe: you’re a dose.
@Brendan O’Brien: While they are at it lets remove you as well
@Brendan Hill: (‘Trump 24′ is another of his profiles. No doubt he’ll wheel out a few more: he obviously has nothing better to do.)
@Brendan O’Brien: Incorrect kid I have nothing to do with him. Wrong again kid
@Trump24: C U next Thursday
@Basildon Joe: if you vote, you would know it’s up to you if you don’t want transfers. Just vote for candidate you want. Simple.
Fingers crossed he doesn’t get in. We really need to reform our electoral system which allows clowns like him to sneak in. We need to end the transferable vote process and simplify it so that you just tick the box for the candidate that you want and the people with the highest number of votes gets the seats. No voting pacts, no party transfers, just straight up voting for the best person.
@Frank O’Hara: This system gives a much better reflection of how the people voted than first-past-the-post. The fact that you dislike some TDs does not discredit the system.
@Brendan O’Brien: It just isn’t a good system Brendan. It allows for poorer-quality candidates to sneak in even though they didn’t deserve to. It reduces the need for political parties to differentiate themselves from each other and actually go out and try to win votes for people because all parties now have voting pacts with each other that allows them to get elected without having to put the work in with their constituents. We need first-past-the-post in Ireland. It’s not perfect but it’s far superior to the current electoral system currently in place which is extremely dysfunctional.
@Frank O’Hara: you really know nothing, do you.. What age are you.???
@Brendan O’Brien: disagree
@saladin: You haven’t provided any sort of coherent rebuttal to the points that I made. Is that because you know I’m right?
Vincent Browne should exactly what type of person he is.
@Dominick Lodola: Is it me, or is this total gobbledegook?
@Dominick Lodola: ehhhh, what?
Imagine being labelled the greatest health minister in the last twenty five years by a former (and sadly likely future again) Taoiseach and the current Taoiseach both of whom were health ministers before ascending to the top job only to lose your seat. That would be embarrassing
Almost as embarrassing as leaving the political party that helped you get a start in politics in this country to join the party that you publicly criticised to no end, in a move that even Stevie Wonder could see to as a nauseatingly careerist manoeuvre only to lose your seat in the same election that your former party has its best ever showing in.
The egg has reached its expiration date
@Macho Movie Man: the health ministry is the poison chalice. Always has been, and always will be , until they throw about 10bn at the health system
@Ian McDonald: it’s a genuine political paradox, a poison chalice which nobody ever tries to genuinely fix yet the last three Taoiseachs are former ministers for health.
Tight getting elderly sick people off the hospital trolley or even seat and into a bed too.
He gives me ire
@Guy: he’s remarkably unlikable. Every time he enters a room it feels like the only appropriate noise that should be made is the sound of children booing at a panto villain
@Macho Movie Man: Very well put, but you could include Woderic No Mates as well, equally repellent!
I waited almost 2 years to see a pain specialist. So while I have sympathy on a personal level for Stephen, I cannot say I’m surprised.
Slippery Steve has left the building.
Back to Fintan I guess to buy the Wine & the Whiskey…
have your say