Belief FF will retain two seats

Cllrs Áine Smith and Clifford give their views on election.

The time of the year, the need for better preparation, and voter fatigue so soon after June's local's may have played a factor in the low turnout in some areas, according to two local Fianna Fáil cllrs.

Áine Smith, a veteran of the count centre through her later father Séan and uncle Brendan, and the party's elder statesman Clifford Kelly, have canvassed the length and breath of the constituency the past three weeks in the hope of rallying voters to pick their candidates.

But it was not without its challenges.

They remain confident that Fianna Fáil could take two seats in Cavan-Monaghan, keeping a keen eye on how Sinn Féin are doing in the polls and how transfers are falling among candidates expected to fall by the wayside early in the race.

“I can't see them taking three seats, but I firmly believe Fianna Fáil will take two seats in Cavan-Monaghan,” says Cllr Kelly.

The Kingscourt native, who has suffered the loss of his own seat on the local authority before winning it back five years later, admits that watching the count take place “doesn't get any easier” and that it is becoming “much, much more harder to predict the outcome, there is no doubt about it. When you see here 20 candidates in the field, and now after the first count the eliminations will start, you will see votes will be going all over the place. There doesn't seem to be any set pattern.”

Could Fianna Fáil have implemented a better strategy.

Cllr Smith laughs while saying “hindsight”, while Cllr Kelly suggests: “Maybe we didn't get out in time. I think we probably could have prepared ourselves better. It was a short call on the election, even though we knew it was coming, we didn't prepare enough I do believe in time for that.”

Cllr Smith reminds that it has only been six months since the last election, when the majority of the party faithful already called to doors and were returning once again.

“It was funny going back to doors again, literally within the six months we're going back to the same people, people who had small babies who have got a little bit bigger, and some women who were pregnant have had their babies in the meantime. So its not that we haven't been out. God it feels like all we've done is canvas for the last year.”

Cllr Kelly chimes: “It wasn't for the lack of canvassing. Probably a little bit slow on the ground getting out our posters and that. That was one thing.”

How do the cllrs see canvassing changing in the next five to ten years?

Cllr Smith says technology plays a factor, but still maintains that voters want to see people calling to their door.

“If you don't go to the door people know you haven't been, and I believe people love to meet the person and talk to them. Its the personal touch still. However, with gates and everything else, people are working, aren't home until five or six in the evenings, there is no opportune time to meet people and you you're very lucky when you do get to meet people. Ten years time?”

“It'll be totally different picture altogether,” adds Cllr Kelly. “I think there will actually be a lot more use of technology in years to come and people will have to prepare and used to that.”

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