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Alan Shatter's fight for redemption in south Dublin

The former justice minister could struggle to win the backing of Fine Gael members in his own constituency.

ALAN SHATTER IS facing a tough internal battle to ensure he can even be in the race to retain his Dáil seat at the next election.

The former justice minister has already declared his intention to run for re-election, but securing enough support from party members in Dublin Rathdown may prove problematic.

The constituency, formerly known as Dublin South, has been reduced from five seats to three and will be hotly-contested by all parties with as many as five sitting TDs and one senator going for the three seats. Unsurprisingly, it’s been labelled the ‘constituency of death’.

Despite this it’s considered one of the few in the country where Fine Gael can take two seats at the next election having taken three four years ago.

The party has scheduled a selection convention for 2 October with nomination papers distributed in the last week. Party headquarters is also currently conducting private polling in the constituency to determine candidate strategy.

At least two Fine Gael candidates will run and this is considered by many to be the optimum ticket. However, picking those candidates may prove the most interesting battle with at least four names in the running.

Olivia Mitchell, who has represented the area as a TD since 1997, has confirmed to TheJournal.ie this week that she intends to run again despite speculation to the contrary.

George Lee steps down Olivia Mitchell PA WIRE PA WIRE

She is almost certain to win the overwhelming backing of party members at convention.

But Shatter‘s selection is far from certain with constituency sources claiming he may not have sufficient support among the members.

“This time last year everyone assumed he would retire so some people are worried that it’s him trying to get redemption,” said one.

The constituency redraw has reduced the number of Fine Gael members from over 400 to around 230 with some of Shatter’s supporters now moved into Dublin South-West.

Historically, Shatter has not always performed strongly at selection conventions despite having been a TD for the area since 1981 with the exception of five years out of the Dáil between 2002 and 2007.

The veteran Fine Gael TD has sought to increase his profile both nationally – with poetry readings and an appearance on ‘The Restaurant’ – and in the constituency since losing his cabinet post in a blaze of controversy last year.

He made a passionate speech on abortion and divorce to local members in February and very publicly came out in support of the family of Ibrahim Halawa. The father of the jailed teenager is imam of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh.

He also recently circulated a leaflet that was notably devoid of the level of Fine Gael branding that others TDs have:

Shatter’s strongest opponent for the Fine Gael nomination appears to be the two-term Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county councillor Neale Richmond.

The Ballinteer-based councillor, who got married this summer, has been quietly building up support and a national media profile in recent months. Richmond is expected to declare his intention to contest the convention shortly.

He is also a close ally of Mitchell’s having previously worked as her campaign manager and parliamentary assistant.

fg-video-6 Neale Richmond appeared in a Fine Gael video on the art of canvassing last year. This helpful video tells Fine Gael candidates how to behave on the doorstep This helpful video tells Fine Gael candidates how to behave on the doorstep

Another councillor who is hoping to be on the ticket is Josepha Madigan who was elected for the first time last year and declared her intentions on Facebook this week.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the family law practitioner said she had been building up support and momentum since she was elected last year.

However, Madigan admitted there is a lot of uncertainty about who party members will nominate, saying:

I think there are a lot of imponderables in our constituency. There are two incumbent TDs, both with very high profiles. The other two contenders, Neale and I, have considerably less of a profile but we both have a lot to offer. It’s up to the members, this is the reality of it.

madigan Josepha Madigan Facebook Facebook

Another potential contender is Barry Saul, a Stillorgan-based councillor, who was first elected in 2009. However, he told us this week he will not be putting his name forward if the two sitting TDs follow through on their intentions to run again.

“It’s one of the constituencies in the country where Fine Gael has a very strong chance of getting two seats out of three. In fact it’s probably the only constituency where Fine Gael can do this, but I think that would require both sitting TDs running,” he said.

He does not believe the controversies surrounding Shatter will impact the former minister or Fine Gael’s hopes of winning two seats. Saul added:

“He has gone through the mill with a little bit of controversy but I think people will have serious choices to make and it might not necessarily about personalities, but about whether you want a Sinn Féin-led government or a Fine Gael-led government. I think Alan has strong support.”

Shatter was out of the country this week and did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Outside of Fine Gael many observers expect that independent TD Shane Ross will easily retain his seat.

Bank of Ireland AGM Shane Ross Niall Carson Niall Carson

He topped the poll in 2011 and is hoping that his new Independent Alliance project will help return him to the Dáil.

Labour party minister Alex White is considered to be in big trouble and would upset the odds if he retained his seat.

Fianna Fáil hopes that senator Mary White can help the party regain a foothold in a constituency represented by the late Seamus Brennan for over 25 years.

Sinn Féin is running Dundrum-based councillor Sorcha Nic Cormaic, while Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin is hoping to regain a seat the party lost in 2011 when Eamon Ryan (now running in Dublin Bay South) was dumped by voters. People Before Profit is running Nicola Curry.

Finally, the intentions of ex-Fine Gael TD Peter Mathews, who was a late and ultimately ill-fated addition to the FG ticket four years ago, are unclear although he has previously said he will run.

Read: Will these men lose out in Fianna Fáil’s desperate hunt for women?

Revealed: How Fine Gael plans to fight the next general election

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:21 AM

    >5000 Civilian dead, over 2000 kids. Collective punishment, denial of water, food & power – numerous atrocities & war crimes carried out with impunity. Scant reporting of the slaughter in western media, no calls for sanctions, no fundraisers or calls to provide arms to Palestinian resistance. Why do our media organisations deny Palestinians the same human dignity they gave Ukranians? or even advocate for the basic application of international law? just silently supporting genocide. The ugly underbelly of the EU & US is there for all the world to see

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:25 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: it’s shocking isn’t it, Israel targeting hospitals and civilian infrastructure, 2500 children dead for israels insatiable thirst for stealing land.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:33 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: what about the hundreds of thousands that putin has slaughtered?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:51 AM

    first of all, you only have Hamas’s word for the casualty numbers. Secondly, you do know a large slice of the Palestinian leadership WANTS its civilians to die, don’t you? They know the gullible West laps up images of babies being pulled from rubble and will put pressure on Israel. It’s win/win for them. Newsflash: Islamists like ISIS and Hamas love death like we love life – they are a death cult. They don’t think like you. Just look at memri.org if you don’t believe me. If this were purely a territorial dispute, the Palestinians would’ve had a state of their own long ago. They object to a Jewish state in Islamic territory, end of. You think they wring their hands about Islamic colonialism the way our friend Kerill does about Western colonialism? Not a chance. They are Islamic supremacist.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:58 AM

    Russia had been sanctioned relentlessly, thrown out of international financial systems, Russian individuals wealth was take from them. I personally organised a fundraiser making €1.5k for Ujranian refugees, my home village was 25% Ukranian (welcomed with open arms) at one stage last year. The West bombed Russian infrastructure, provided >$150bn in weapons & military support, it runs non-stop propoganda for Ukraine. Conversely, the West provides bombs for Israel to kill Palestinian refugees, it denies them food, water & electricity and our media dehumanisees them. Both people are resisting illegal occupation – other the white western supremacy, how do you explain this absurd difference in treatment?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:02 AM

    @Squarepeg 01: There are thousand and thousands of images and videos of the destruction of Gaza, buildings razed and dismembered children, which our media is dutifully ignoring – you’ve lost the plot if you think the deaths are made up… Palestinians have been living there for centuries – you clearly don’t understand the term colonialism is you think Benny Netanyahu from Philadelhia is the local to the region…

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:37 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: to reinterate, Hamas WANT their citizens to die and in many cases stop them from following Israeli instructions to evacuate so that they WILL die. Jews have been living in Palestine for centuries, too. Towns like Hebron had an uninterupted Jewish presence since Biblical times until the pogrom of 1929. ‘Oh but Jewish immigration stepped up following the 19th century Zionist project.’ Sure, but Arabs immigrated to work for the British, too. How come they’re not called illegal occupiers?
    There is a moral difference between people killed as collateral damage and terrorist gangs going house to house, raping women, burning families alive, shooting kids in the head, murdering babies in their cribs, abducting >200 hostages etc.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:49 AM

    @Squarepeg 01: Your argument is primarily an emotive racist diatribe.. I know many Arabs and Palestinians – they are no different to us. The number of people killed would indicate that Israel is considerably more barbaric – unless you think Palestinians are non-human? There are clear international borders (1967) between Israel and Palestine – the occupation is clearly defined in law as illegal, as are the settlements. The solution to this conflict is respecting both parties, international law and a negotiated peaceful coexistence.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 12:14 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: you are living in a fantasy land. Both sides covet the land, but only one party wants peaceful coexistence, the other wants to annihilate all Jews from Palestine. What clearer proof of that do you need than Hamas’s rampage on Oct 7th, which you never seem to mention.
    Nothing racist in what I said. Of course, the Palestinians are as human as you or I, but I was referring to their culture, which is absolutely different from ours. I mean, it’s not like they go to much trouble to hide it. They glorify martyrs by naming streets after them and paying their families rewards. This world is just a stepping stone to Paradise. Did you not know this?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 12:46 PM

    @Squarepeg 01: Your racist depiction of Arabs is ridiculous, straight from the daily telegraph. As is your insistence that Palestinians want to wipe out Israel – Fatah agree to the legal boundaries, even Hamas changed their charter to recognise the 1967 international boundaries. If you think Israel can continue illegally occupying & ethnically cleansing Palestine without starting a regional war – you are mistaken. World opinion is firmly in Palestinians court, and against the genocide in Gaza – Israel is alienating every one of it’s friends by ignoring international law.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 1:24 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: The settlements may exacerbate the situation, but the deeper problem for Islamists is the existence of Israel itself. You and the millions of other pro-Palestinian Westerners can continue to bury your heads in the sand about the types of people you are supporting all you like, but doing so has consequences. If they destroy Israel, do you think the West won’t be next? 10% of France’s population is Muslim. Many major European cities are already hotbeds of jihadi activity – what do you think it will be like as the Muslim population approaches parity? Putting Mulsim grievances down to Western colonialism would severely mischaracterise the situation – a very large number of them want to live under some form of sharia law. This is a spiritual battle, for us and them.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 3:43 PM

    @Squarepeg 01: You are completely ignoring the internationally recognised legal position, rambling about holy wars & spiritual battles – weirdos thinking the bible/torah is a property register started this mess. How about respecting the internationally recognised border, that over 130 countries have agreed to, along with Palestinian leadership. Just enforce this border, demilitarise the region and bring in peacekeepers. No one will win in a war

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    Oct 24th 2023, 5:07 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: with every reply you make, the more obvious it becomes that you don’t really understand the people you are supporting. You’re secular. You mouth the left wing shibboleths of ‘colonialism’ and ‘occupation’ while mocking ‘weirdos’ who believe in the Torah and the Bible. Are you so unself-aware not to realise how strongly your Palestinian buddies believe in the Qu’ran? Why do you think they shout ‘Alahu Akbar’ when they kill the Kafir? It’s funny in a way. Saul Alinsky taught the radical left how to use the values of the West against its own institutions in order to bring them down. Hamas and other Islamists are using a similar tactic, only this time they are hooking into the intersectional oppression narrative of the Left. In other words, you are being played.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:07 AM

    Where is kerrill the Russian bot? Where are you with your deflection?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:40 AM

    Last seen entering the Gaza strip in a hot-pants and gimp mask waving a rainbow flag.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:52 AM

    Good morning invisible man. I’m working, but will take a moment to share with you Bibis own published plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza below: EU/US politicians & media are aware of the plans, but have done nothing to stop this genocide – effectively controlled by military intelligence. They are blindly going along with a decades long campaign to dehumanise Palestinians, cover up their appalling treatment and normalise the llegal occupation. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-think-tank-lays-out-a-blueprint-for-the-complete-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/?utm_content=buffera2434&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:56 AM

    If our media is too cowardly to report the thousands of dead children and the carpet bombing of schools, hospitals and churches – I consider it an obligation to speak out about it. An anonymous person accusing me of deflection or being a bot, is quite ironic. Have a good day

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:32 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: tell it to putin, I’m sure he cares.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:34 AM

    Lol! He heard you! Kerrill the gimpo!

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