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Updated 1.45pm
FINE GAEL WILL KICK-START its general election preparations later this week with the first of 40 selection conventions set to take place in Dublin on Thursday night.
While the other major parties have already begun selecting candidates in recent weeks, Fine Gael has been waiting for its internal election strategy committee, headed by justice minister Frances Fitzgerald, to finish assessing how many candidates should be run in each constituency.
Fitzgerald’s own constituency of Dublin Mid-West will be the first to formally pick its candidates this Thursday when the minister and her fellow incumbent Derek Keating are selected by local members.
While dates have been set for a number of other selection conventions, more contentious constituencies are unlikely to select candidates until later this year.
The big problem for Fine Gael will be gender quotas.
With the party set to run as many as 90 candidates across the country, a third of these will need to be female in order to avoid fines. In some cases this could mean adding female candidates to tickets even if they have little hope of being elected just to ensure the party does not lose State funding.
One area where that won’t be a problem is Meath East. Incumbent TDs Regina Doherty and Helen McEntee, who took her late father Shane’s seat in a by-election two years ago, are likely to be selected at a convention in Kells on Sunday, 29 March.
But it’s in Dublin where the internal battles could get really interesting with up to five potentially contentious selection conventions delayed and unlikely to take place until after the summer, TheJournal.ie understands.
In addition to Dublin Mid-West, four selection conventions in the capital have been scheduled for April with another in May.
These include Dublin West on 13 April where Senator Catherine Noone is set to be added to the ticket alongside Health Minister Leo Varadkar.
In Dublin Bay South, which holds its convention on 16 April, incumbent TD Eoghan Murphy will be selected with councillor Kate O’Connell likely to join him on the ticket. Her council colleague Kieran Binchy is also set to contest the convention but is unlikely to be selected with sources indicating he could withdraw on the night.
However, Binchy told us this afternoon that he intends to “fight to the end to be on that ticket”.
Dublin Central will select incumbent TD and Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe at a convention on 27 April. He faces an uphill battle to retain the party’s seat in a redrawn constituency that has lost a number of Fine Gael-friendly areas.
Dublin Bay North will select Jobs Minister Richard Bruton on 30 April with failed local election candidate Stephanie Regan and former lord mayor Naoise Ó Muirí also vying for a spot on the Fine Gael ticket.
Dublin South-West is scheduled to hold its selection convention on 28 May with failed by-election candidate, Senator Cait Keane, along with local councillors Colm Brophy, who is an ally of former TD Brian Hayes, and Anne-Marie Dermody also vying for selection.
Dates have not been set for Dublin Fingal, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin North West, Dublin Rathdown and Dublin South-Central.
Incumbent TDs James Reilly and Alan Farrell are likely to be selected in Dublin Fingal although many believe there is realistically only one Fine Gael seat in the constituency.
Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett is automatically re-elected in Dún Laoghaire which means incumbent Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell-O’Connor will have a running mate, most likely councillors Maria Bailey or Barry Ward.
In Dublin North-West the highly-rated councillor Noel Rock is certain to be picked. The party could add a female running mate to boost their quota with Aoibhinn Tormey, the daughter of Rock’s former rival Bill Tormey, seen as a possible candidate.
It’s unclear whether incumbent TD Catherine Byrne will run for re-election in Dublin South-Central, which, from a Fine Gael point of view, has suffered from the loss of Terenure into Dublin Bay South.
However the real intrigue is in the capital’s constituency of death, Dublin Rathdown (formerly Dublin South), which has gone from five to three seats.
Fine Gael incumbents Alan Shatter and Olivia Mitchell have both indicated publicly that they want to run again, but also vying for spots on what’s likely to be a two candidate ticket are councillors Neale Richmond and Josepha Madigan.
Four into two doesn’t go so this could be a particularly feisty selection convention, whenever it does eventually take place.
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I have to say fair play to Mary Lou. I hope this is a further step in building better relations with our British neighbours across the water
@Sean Treacy: It’s help if the current leaders of the neighbours across the water were reasonable and genuine… But truth be told the Torys have obliterated the relationship on an official level.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: it’d*
@Sean Treacy: I agree, and for once I can’t disagree with her, it’s a great gesture
@Sean Treacy: agreed, FairPlay ML. If we are ever to have a border poll these gestures need to be more frequent and meaningful.
@FiannaFáilness FineGaelness: TYR!!TS
@Sean Treacy: somehow I feel it has more to do with building better relations with our neighbours on this side of the water!
@Angela McCarthy: It’s neither, just pretending they are grown ups with shallow, meaningless utterances. Earlier in the week, her party put out another celebration of killers getting killed (this time a guy kidnapping a dog warden). Anyone who thinks this is anything but a front to unionists that SF are somehow tolerant is going to be sorely mistaking.
@Jaime: You don’t seem like you have an axe to grind at all. They’re the most popular party in the country. Time you swallowed that
@Jaime: but I’m sure her gesture to the queen of England will more than compensate for the killing of Mountbatten.
@Sean Treacy: Agree. Well done Mary lou
@John Mulligan: ye john. Lets not forget jimmy saville and Epsteine too
@John Mulligan: Monuntbatten the Paedophile!
Well bridges have to be built, no better person to do that other than Mary Lou McDonald.
@Declan Carr: Agreed 100% It’s great to see Mary Lou doing this, mind you I seem to remember Martin McGuinness shaking the Queen’s hand a number of years ago so this mightn’t be as groundbreaking as some excitable posters might have us believe.
@Declan Carr: Well Boris wants to build a bridge and a tunnel – to Scotland. he’s currently digging his way out of no 10,
@Declan Carr: Do you do stand-up comedy as well Declan, or is it just written satire?
@Justin Gillespie: Nothing wrong with your memory, Martin did shake hands with the Queen. I didn’t mention him, this is all about Mary Lou today.
@Angela McCarthy: I don’t think Boris will ever get the chance to build an orange bridge.
@Eoin Roche: scarlet for you
@Declan Carr: really!!
This is the leadership we need. Fair play to Mary Lou.
@padar: the leadership we need? Really?
@Disco Inferno:probably better than the leadership we have at the moment. So yeah. Really!!!!
@Paul Gorry: nah she is not the leadership we need at all. The leadership we currently have is far superior to this failed Fianna Fáil member.
@Frankie J: I thought all FF’ers were failures?
@Angela McCarthy: hardly, they’re still in government despite the apparent own goal shinners have.
Hard to have anything but respect for this particular queen of England, dropped into presiding over a dying empire aged 25 and just kept on rolling… I just hope she writes a biography before she snuffs it, you just know her thoughts on Boris and some other PMs are going to be absolute gold!
@Nameo Maximus: could not care less
@Philip foster: why comment on it then?, move on to the next article that interests you.
@Paul Gorry: are you a royalist?
@Philip foster: “could not care less”
If that was true you wouldn’t have responded.
@Nameo Maximus: She is not permitted to make political statements and it’s highly unlikely she would publish her thoughts on individual politicians she’s dealt with in her time. What I would like to see is an apology from her for what her government and armed forces did and continue to do to Irish people in their own country. Not “things could have been done differently”. Her country is responsible for millions of Irish deaths and must formally apologise before the world for its myriad war crimes in Ireland. Surely, we should work at repairing the relationship with England, but not to the point of obsequious subservience. We Irish are every bit as good as the British. I would argue that in many ways we are better, as neither Ireland nor its people ended the lives of over 200 million people [which Britain did during its empire period], simply to enrich the British capitalist élite. The old saying that “a fool is the Irish person who trusts the British” is as apt today as ever it was.
Mary Lou is the queen bee. Fair play mary.
now that’s progress
Wee Jeffrey and Sammy Wilson what you going to say now or will you just stop walking the Queens Highway.
@Joe Johnson: How is Jeffrey and the No – No’s going to respond to this with an election looming? Very loud silence I’d say.
Saint Mary Lou McDonald. Give me a break.
@Andy Dillon: And who was the person who called her ‘Saint Mary Lou’ Andy?
@Andy Dillon: she’ll be getting nominated for the Nobel Peace PriZe next !!
@ Justin Gillespie,
It’s pretty obvious from most of your comments where your loyalties (lie) ,keep up cheerleading for every political opponent of the Shinners.
Hopefully all your children can buy a home for themselves someday and hopefully you never get ill and have to depend on social welfare and in fairness what Mary Lou said was very generous especially to people who lived during the so called (troubles)in Ulster and indeed on the island.
@Paul Mc: Mary Lou for Taosieach 1
@Paul Mc: The hatred is strong in this one.
@Paul Mc: No pleasing some people, I commended Mary Lou for what she did and still the moaners moan.
I make no secret of the fact that I am not a Shinner, I am not alone in that just as there are loads of people who are.
I don’t slavishly support any political party and would be the first to say that the present governments record in housing and health is brutal.
I just don’t think a SF government would be any better in fact I think it would be calamitous for the country.
I may well be wrong, I suspect we will find out soon.
@David Corrigan: Indeed the hatred is high here. You can tell Mary Lou has hit a cord and done something right here, to bring them all out of woodwork. ha Ha
You can picture their faces upon reading the headline first. A few burst blood vessels and smashed keyboards. lol
She’s laying the ground work for when she is Taoiseach. Smart move Lou Lou.
Good gesture.
Well done Mary Lou
The leader of a so-called republican party praises a hereditary monarch and we think it’s a good thing?
Her lifetime of service consists of cutting ribbons, handing out awards, and being waited on hand and foot at one of her many palaces. Good grief!
@Lesidees: go and read a bit she’s done so much more . Ignorance is bliss
Why care about anything British
@Philip foster: Because we have too Philip.
@Paul Gorry: “to”
Definitely one of the best Monarchs they ever had, and they’ve had some doozies. Elizabeth the first, Henry the Eighth, Victoria. They’ve had a fair few nutters in their time alright.
Well done MLMcD. Take the high road.
But isn’t it strange how the name Bunting is so hunish??
She must be looking for a knighthood
Step forward Dame Mary
Eeh …..careful with that sword Lizzie.
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