'You're always first 'til you're not'

Cavan Cathaoirleach, Fine Gael's TP O'Reilly, shares views on disarray caused by three candidate strategy.

Fine Gael's TP O'Reilly is a man resigned to a certain fate, but not entirely defeated.

He toes the party line, confident his sacrifice and most likely that of his fellow Cavan running-mate Carmel Brady will effectively render the party seat held by Heather Humphreys safe.

“We're going to keep one seat and that's going to be Heather's seat in David Maxwell. I hope that we push David across the line when it comes down to that.”

He's putting party first.

“You're always first 'til you're not,” he says with a laugh. “And then you have to know where you are in the race. But being realistic, if David gets across the line I'll be delighted.”

Between local and general elections, this was Cllr O'Reilly's fourth contest in just five years, and in 2020 he proved far more transfer friendly than some more experienced rivals, despite only being in politics for a year at that time.

Deputy Leader of Fine Gael and former Minister Heather Humphreys' decision to retire came as a surprise to some. But within the party it had been hinted at before that specific conversation “went quiet” again.

When it was eventually announced just weeks before the election was called it dropped like a bombshell.

“There was a bit of speculation,” Cllr O'Reilly acknowledges. “But that ebbed away and everything was normal again. Then she pulled the pin.”

Was it too late in the day?

“When is too late if you're in that position? Heather had her own personal reasons to take into account. So it's for her to decide.”

He stresses that he's definitely not taking a swipe, but Cllr O'Reilly says he would have liked to see the popular retiring minister share her canvassing time more evenly between the three Fine Gael candidates.

“She canvassed for David, she canvassed for Carmel, that's fair enough. I would have hoped it was a more even spread maybe, but I'm not griping. We threw three candidates in there. The way I looked at it was after the last local election I said we get behind one candidate [in Cavan] whoever that may be. I was still the candidate and I said fair enough, plough on. That was the plan.

“Then after Heather made the announcement HQ came down and said they were going to add a third candidate. It threw everything into a wee bit of a disarray. It left us then asking what's our position here? Are they looking to get rid of me and put a female candidate in instead? I didn't honestly know.”

Cllr O'Reilly believes the addition of a third candidate weakened his chances personally.

“Obviously. It was very clear cut [after convention] to have a candidate in Cavan and to have one in Monaghan. You see by the number of votes. David is sitting on about 6,500. Roughly 7,000 is the Monaghan vote when you take Heather had 12,000. Having said that some of that was personal and that was never going to go to [Maxwell]. We have about 9,000 votes between myself and Carmel. That's about the Cavan vote regardless of what anyone says.”

In a tight field like the 2024 election, where few of the successful candidates stand to exceed to quota, Cllr O'Reilly says what's important is “keeping up there and then get your transfers as they come”.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, he states. Was a three candidate strategy the wrong way to go for Fine Gael. Cllr O'Reilly certainly seems to think so?

“He done it the last time, ran me and Sandra McIntyre in Cavan. I felt that was the wrong thing to do. She polled about 1,200 votes. A lot of them would have went to Heather before they ever come back to me. So it left me in limbo!”

The Cavan-Monaghan Director of Elections was former Laois Offaly TD, Offaly County Councillor and National Director of Organisation for Fine Gael, Olwyn Enright.

Cllr O'Reilly tells the Celt they heard from her once “and that was to tell us [HQ] was adding a third [candidate locally]. I'm not griping. I'm not. I'm only just saying how things developed. [Enright] came down on a Sunday evening after Heather's announcement. She was never heard tell of again.”

He says: “Every party is going to have questions for their respective HQ. I don't know what the strategy was only there was no strategy but to add a third candidate in Cavan-Monaghan and make the best of it. It caused a bit of disarray.”

Is a run for Seanad on the cards?

“We'll look at it the next few days,” he tells the Celt. It's something we'll discuss. We still have to get David elected, first and foremost. Then we'll wait to see what options are open to us if any.”

Is it something Cllr O'Reilly would be interested in?

“Yeah, it absolutely would. We need to have that representation in Cavan. We have Joe O'Reilly there. But we'll cross one bridge at time. I'll play the ball that's in front of me, whatever that is at anyone time.”

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