Ballyjamesduff MD secures one Fianna Fáil councillor on 7th count

Cllr Philip Brady gets across the line on the seventh count.

Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Philip Brady has been re-elected to the Ballyjamesduff Municipal District after a mammoth two-day count at the Leisure Centre in Cavan.

Cllr Brady will be the only Fianna Fáil candidate to be returned after Nathan Galligan was eliminated earlier today. The local area representative, who was elected alongside Cllr Winston Bennett (FG) on the seventh count is “absolutely relieved” by the outcome and highlighted how party strategies and plans will have to be explored further over the coming weeks and months.

Speaking to the Celt, he said it was a “great feeling” to be elected and back on the municipal district for the third time. “Winston doesn’t live too far from me so to get in at the same time as him was quite pleasing,” he continued. “It’s just great to get in again after such a long campaign.”

In the 2019 Local Elections, the party returned three councillors to the Ballyjamesduff Municipal District. Cllr Shane P O’Reilly - who is now a representative for Independent Ireland; Cllr Brady; and Craig Lovett who indicated in March that he would not be seeking re-election this time round.

So, dose Cllr Brady feel the Fianna Fáil executive executed the correct plan for the Municipal District in this election campaign? What does he think has been learned?

“We lost one to the Independents and I suppose over the last couple of years we failed to gather enough people to run a third candidate in the Ballyjamesduff Electoral Area,” he said. “We felt that running two candidates was the right thing to do this time round but it just didn’t work out for us and sometimes that’s the way politics goes unfortunately.

"We will have to learn from this and try and win the seats back but in hindsight everything appears great so we will just have to go back to the table and find a way to regain the people we have lost.”

Cllr Brady, meanwhile, believes the political landscape is not just changing nationally; it is also evident in rural Ireland. “Politics has changed a lot and Shane P O’Reilly is an example of this. He's been in politics since 2004 and he has built up relationships with people who were Fianna Fáil supporters.

"But it's not party politics anymore because those people have stuck with Shane P and probably moved away altogether from the Fianna Fáil party. We as a party will have to look at where we’re going and where we are at, so that we can rectify the situation ansd win our seats back at the next election.

"It’s hard to even envisage at this stage where we will be at, politically as a society, five years from now. Life is changing all the time and as politicians we have to adapt to that. But we have learned lessons and we will move forward and do what is best for the Fianna Fáil party."