Local & European Elections 2009 - Results Thread

Sully

It leaves FF with only one seat in waterford. Poor cullen looked very worried at the count!!

merlante

Trotter wrote: »

I'm gutted that we've put a FFer in after everything. What does this party have to do to Waterford before we get rid of them. I am DISGUSTED.

A great pity. Waterford city had an opportunity to make history by (probably) being the first council in the country to return no FF candidates.

The 4 candidate strategy was their only chance and it panned out. They captured enoug of the vote for one of them to be in the running. I guess if WP/SF and FG had transferred to each other more strongly in an 'anybody but FF' bid, they could have been denied. Would be interested to see the details of the last few counts.

AdMMM

Bah, I got all excited when I saw a few friend's Facebooks' plastered with "No FF".

Sully

merlante wrote: »

A great pity. Waterford city had an opportunity to make history by (probably) being the first council in the country to return no FF candidates.

The 4 candidate strategy was their only chance and it panned out. They captured enoug of the vote for one of them to be in the running. I guess if WP/SF and FG had transferred to each other more strongly in an 'anybody but FF' bid, they could have been denied. Would be interested to see the details of the last few counts.

The FG transfers didn't exactly go in other FG candidates favour, as much as they should/would have.

Sully

Just to complete the picture for Waterford City.

Waterford City Council
East
Tom Cunningham FG
Davy Daniels Ind
Jim Darcy FG
Mary Roche Ind
Jack Walsh Lab
Garry Wyse FF (The *only* FF seat in Waterford, 8 votes ahead of Joe Tobin, Workers Party. Recount failed to get other FF candidate elected)

South
John Cummins FG (Senator Maurice Cummins sun, first time running)
David Cullinane SF
Cha ONeill Ind
John Halligan Ind (ex Workers Party, topped the poll)
Seamus Ryan Lab (Topped the poll)

North
Pat Hayes Lab
Hilary Quinlan FG
Davy Walsh WP
Dick Roche Ind

Summary: FGx4, FFx1, SFx1, Labx3, Indx5, WPx1

wfman

just taking a look at the wards.
south.
tom murphy going no suprise there.
cullinanes vote dropping by 50% was a shock.
ryan down slightly the others down a lot.
halligans vote is the story of this ward.
increased his vote by 300 from 04 to 1430
almost 25% of the votes.going well over the qouta.

north.
joe kelly going was a suprise for me.sinn fein vote
fell a lot in waterford.
i predicted a seat for roche but i thought it would
be davy walsh's.two elections in a row here that a
first time candidate polled higher then two sitting councillors.
joe kelly did it in 04.

south
all outgoing councillors returned here.
collapse of the green party vote here.they may never turn this around.
ff called it right with 4 candidates to get the last seat (extra seat from 04)
davy daniels once again goes over the quota.

WhatsTheStorey

Well done to Gary Wyse, a straight talker who will try and promote our city. I appreciate that Finna Fail made a mess of our economy and should suffer but Gary will be good for the city. We don't need any left wing fundamentalists that will bring us back to the 80s!!

AdMMM

But at the same time we don't need someone who doesn't know what part of the city constitutes being the City Centre and what doesn't.

WhatsTheStorey

AdMMM wrote: »

But at the same time we don't need someone who doesn't know what part of the city constitutes being the City Centre and what doesn't.

Gary runs his own business in the City centre while others like him moved out to the suburbs! He is all about a vibrant city. The sitting councillors or the loony left has no vision. We need creativity and innovators now to move the city forward, not knockers!!

Trotter

WhatsTheStorey wrote: »

Gary runs his own business in the City centre while others like him moved out to the suburbs! He is all about a vibrant city. The sitting councillors or the loony left has no vision. We need creativity and innovators now to move the city forward, not knockers!!

Will he sell that stupid Information Centre on Broad Street for scrap?

WhatsTheStorey

Trotter wrote: »

Will he sell that stupid Information Centre on Broad Street for scrap?

The sitting councillors accepted that! There was one FF councillor there but I would seriously question his political persuasion! I'm sure he will be open to suggestions because a vibrant Waterford will be good for him, so a win-win situation!!

Sully

WhatsTheStorey wrote: »

The sitting councillors accepted that! There was one FF councillor there but I would seriously question his political persuasion! I'm sure he will be open to suggestions because a vibrant Waterford will be good for him, so a win-win situation!!

What?

I get the impression you have very strong connections with Gary.. or Finna Fail in general. Hrm...

meldrew

John Halligan is an expert at getting people what they're entitled to so its no surprise to see his vote , I'd be wary of Dick Roche's "independent" status , he's a left wing fundamentalist closely aligned to the socialist workers , I was surprised to see Tom Murphy going whatever people think about FF he was always to the fore whenever there was trouble with the travellers and he was'nt afraid to stand up to them , not surprised at the drop in Cullinanes vote I suppose if he lived in the area rather than 20 miles away in Kilkenny he'd have done better , Joe Kelly and Mary O Halloran going was no surprise they just did'nt seem up to the job , nice to see someone young getting in but John Cummins seems to have got in on his fathers name and now we have another political dynasty on our hands , we.ll see how Wyse gets on but the way he was talking on the radio you'd think he was after getting a landslide instead of just 8 votes !

WhatsTheStorey

Sully wrote: »

What?

I get the impression you have very strong connections with Gary.. or Finna Fail in general. Hrm...

No connection to Finna Fail at all (I'm apolitical). However, I did come across Gary in business once and found him to be extremely honourable to a fault! He went so far out of the way to do something right, where i knew he would be out of pocket, that when he ran for election, i was not going to vote for anyone else (and i know a number of them personally). He will prove to be a good guy for Waterford!

mike65

The % is as follows

Other 38
FG 21
Lab 16
FF 13
SF 9
Green 1

No big shifts. FG +3 and Indy +3 but SF the bigest looser -4 which is frankly a shock. While I'd not give them the time of day they have a strong enough vote here. Anyone know why the fall? FF down a point, okay they didn't have much to start with.

Sully

Europe - East
In no particular order. These are the latest figures.

Brian Crowely, Finna Fail ELECTED (Topped the poll)
Sean Kelly, Fine Gael ELECTED
Toireasa Ferris, Sinn Fein ELIMINATED
Alan Kelly, Labour Count in Progress
Kathy Sinnott, Independent Count in Progress
Colm Burke, Fine Gael ELIMINATED
Ned O'Keffe, Finna Fail ELIMINATED
Dan Boyle, Greens ELIMINATED
Alexander Stafford, Independent ELIMINATED
Maurice Sexton, Independent ELIMINATED

nkay1985

mike65 wrote: »

The % is as follows

Other 38
FG 21
Lab 16
FF 13
SF 9
Green 1

No big shifts. FG +3 and Indy +3 but SF the bigest looser -4 which is frankly a shock. While I'd not give them the time of day they have a strong enough vote here. Anyone know why the fall? FF down a point, okay they didn't have much to start with.

Well as my dad was the one losing the seat I've been going over this for the last few days. I just can't see how it's a drop in Sinn Fein vote. It's not like there's any huge anti-SF sentiment nationally. They've just held firm on their vote. Instead, I think it's two seperate things.

We heard that the Workers Party ran a dirty campaign against David Cullinane asking people why they'd vote for "a Kilkenny man" and if the poster a little further up is anything to go by, the sh*t stuck in this case.

With my Dad, I think the ward 1 voters seem to like a first-timer. So while my dad got 660 first preferences last time out, not all these were "Joe Kelly" or "Sinn Fein" votes. Instead, a portion were "Let's give the new guy a shot" votes.

Everyone expected Dick to take votes out of Davy (myself included) but Davy's base is so solid - he's been on the council for 30 years! He actually managed to increase his vote by 27 or something. So Dick took those floating voters from my dad which left him down 104 votes on last time. I have to say I don't feel he deserved that becasue I've seen all the hard work he did for the past five years but the national trend of independents taking huge shares of the vote was borne out here too.

Best of luck to Dick though, hopefully he'll do some good work for the area. And if the pact had any decency they'd give Davy Walsh the mayorship for a year this term but I won't hold my breath.

wfman

Sully wrote: »

Europe - East
In no particular order. These are the latest figures.

Brian Crowely, Finna Fail ELECTED (Topped the poll)
Sean Kelly, Fine Gael ELECTED
Toireasa Ferris, Sinn Fein ELIMINATED
Alan Kelly, Labour Count in Progress
Kathy Sinnott, Independent Count in Progress
Colm Burke, Fine Gael ELIMINATED
Ned O'Keffe, Finna Fail ELIMINATED
Dan Boyle, Greens ELIMINATED
Alexander Stafford, Independent ELIMINATED
Maurice Sexton, Independent ELIMINATED

sinnott eliminated

Sully

I met some Sinn Fein supporters at the count who agreed that there was a big drop in SF, locally at least. You managed to get what, 2 seats alotgether in Waterford City & County? No support in Europe with your new candidate not getting elected and Mary Lou being given the boot? Big losses there dude.

Sully

Europe - East
In no particular order. These are the final figures.

Brian Crowely, Finna Fail ELECTED (Topped the poll)
Sean Kelly, Fine Gael ELECTED
Toireasa Ferris, Sinn Fein ELIMINATED
Alan Kelly, Labour ELECTED
Kathy Sinnott, Independent ELIMINATED
Colm Burke, Fine Gael ELIMINATED
Ned O'Keffe, Finna Fail ELIMINATED
Dan Boyle, Greens ELIMINATED
Alexander Stafford, Independent ELIMINATED
Maurice Sexton, Independent ELIMINATED

Our MEPs for South are;
Fianna Fáil's Brian Crowley,
Fine Gael's Seán Kelly
Labour's Alan Kelly

nkay1985

Sully wrote: »

I met some Sinn Fein supporters at the count who agreed that there was a big drop in SF, locally at least. You managed to get what, 2 seats alotgether in Waterford City & County? No support in Europe with your new candidate not getting elected and Mary Lou being given the boot? Big losses there dude.

No, they lost one seat in the city and gained one in the county, so the same as they were before the elections in total. Declan Clune only lost out in Tramore by 11 votes or something. Brendan Mansfield hugely increased his vote for Dungarvan Town Council and comfortably held his county council seat.

Toireasa Ferris doubled David Cullinane's vote from last time, polling third in the constituency, only being eliminated ahead of Sinnott by a handful of votes. Great performance considering she's a first-timer and the huge backlash in the media.

And Mary Lou lost her seat but increased her first preference vote.

So a loss alright, but not a huge loss, obviously the loss being felta lot more by myself and my family!

Sully

SF failed to capitalise in Waterford. They lost votes. The fact they couldn't get to Europe, regardless of how much they lost, is bad for the party. How many (if any) candidates met their quota? Cullinane should have done much better - moving to Kilkenny probably had a big effect on his campaign. Clune was always going to find it tough tbh, has potential to do better next time, but missing out I believe was not based on the quota?

As for Mary.. I can only imagine the comments about her attendance and being more anti-EU damaged her campaign. Id have put money on her to be elected at the start but towards the end, I had a fair idea she was damaged and would fail to get elected.

One thing I will say; Toireasa was very decent about loosing and not calling for a recount. No complaints, accepted the peoples choice. Fair play.

wfman

Sully wrote: »

SF failed to capitalise in Waterford. They lost votes. The fact they couldn't get to Europe, regardless of how much they lost, is bad for the party. How many (if any) candidates met their quota? Cullinane should have done much better - moving to Kilkenny probably had a big effect on his campaign. Clune was always going to find it tough tbh, has potential to do better next time, but missing out I believe was not based on the quota?

As for Mary.. I can only imagine the comments about her attendance and being more anti-EU damaged her campaign. Id have put money on her to be elected at the start but towards the end, I had a fair idea she was damaged and would fail to get elected.

One thing I will say; Toireasa was very decent about loosing and not calling for a recount. No complaints, accepted the peoples choice. Fair play.

found that strange.600 votes between her and sinnott.500,000 votes cast.cant believe she didnt call one.might be fair to say that sinn fein use europe election in munster to promote candidates for other elections.

wfman

nkay1985 wrote: »

We heard that the Workers Party ran a dirty campaign against David Cullinane asking people why they'd vote for "a Kilkenny man" and if the poster a little further up is anything to go by, the sh*t stuck in this case. quote]

thats why the workers party do badly with transfers.

nkay1985

wfman wrote: »

found that strange.600 votes between her and sinnott.500,000 votes cast.cant believe she didnt call one.might be fair to say that sinn fein use europe election in munster to promote candidates for other elections.

You reckon she was happy enouh to go out having put in a good showing and be seen to go out with good grace, like sully said, so that she'll be more appealing come general election time? Would be hard to see where to run her - no point running against her dad.

wfman wrote: »

thats why the workers party do badly with transfers.

Yeah I thought that was nasty and uncalled for and, as such, was happy Moore missed out in the end.

AdMMM

Sully wrote: »

SF failed to capitalise in Waterford. They lost votes. The fact they couldn't get to Europe, regardless of how much they lost, is bad for the party. How many (if any) candidates met their quota? Cullinane should have done much better - moving to Kilkenny probably had a big effect on his campaign. Clune was always going to find it tough tbh, has potential to do better next time, but missing out I believe was not based on the quota?

As for Mary.. I can only imagine the comments about her attendance and being more anti-EU damaged her campaign. Id have put money on her to be elected at the start but towards the end, I had a fair idea she was damaged and would fail to get elected.

One thing I will say; Toireasa was very decent about loosing and not calling for a recount. No complaints, accepted the peoples choice. Fair play.

I think you're giving Sinn Féin far too much credit. They are still a relatively small party down in the South. I always considered them getting to Europe back in 2004 to be a stroke of excellent campaign managing rather than excellent candidates. Fast forward five years and it became obvious to many people that Sinn Fein weren't going to deliver all that they had promised prior. I'm not dismissing them at all, just pointing out that they ran a very slick campaign in the past and it will take a lot of groundwork, rather than HQ magic, for them to continue to progress as a party.

I personally think that one of the reasons why Joe Kelly failed to hold his seat was directly linked to the lower profile that David Cullinane had in the City. Since 2004, David Cullinane was seen (at least in the publics eye) to be the spokesperson of Sinn Fein in Waterford while Joe Kelly was always seen to be the less active of the two. When David moved to Kilkenny, Joe should have come to the fore and taken a more active role in the media and overtook David. Given David ran in the General Election, everyone and their dogs knew that he lived elsewhere and when it came to decision time in the local elections this time around, they couldn't place their vote in a party whose local spokesperson lived in Kilkenny.

If it was party politics that ensured David remained the preferred candidate then I can understand if Joe feels a little aggrieved by his party's decision, otherwise he has no one but himself to blame for losing his seat as he had lost that seat since the General Elections when it started to become clear that David was become less and less effective as a Councillor yet remained to be the SF councillor hoarding the limelight.

With that being said, I think that in 2004, the "protest" vote went to left wing parties like SF. In 2009 the "protest" vote didn't travel that far left and went directly to Fine Gael. I have no doubt in my mind that the 2004 elections created the illusion that SF were more popular than they really were.

wfman

her father will be 60 at next general election.maybe he has enough.

Keith Winters

It was a fairly disastrous showing for SF in Waterford City to be fair.

Between the three candidates they lost over 800 votes which will seriously hinder the party locally for the next couple of years with Joe gone and Cullinane's appeal significantly diminished.

Another thing the party has to tackle in Waterford is who to look to now as their next General Election candidate. As far as I'm concerned Cullinane is a spent force in this regard and if they genuinely want to challenge for Leinster House they need to look elsewhere. But who is there?

nkay1985

AdMMM wrote: »

I personally think that one of the reasons why Joe Kelly failed to hold his seat was directly linked to the lower profile that David Cullinane had in the City. Since 2004, David Cullinane was seen (at least in the publics eye) to be the spokesperson of Sinn Fein in Waterford while Joe Kelly was always seen to be the less active of the two. When David moved to Kilkenny, Joe should have come to the fore and taken a more active role in the media and overtook David. Given David ran in the General Election, everyone and their dogs knew that he lived elsewhere and when it came to decision time in the local elections this time around, they couldn't place their vote in a party whose local spokesperson lived in Kilkenny.

I think you're right that David was certainly more in the media limelight and that might well have hurt my Dad. I'm sure they'll look over the whole thing and analyse it.

AdMMM wrote: »

With that being said, I think that in 2004, the "protest" vote went to left wing parties like SF. In 2009 the "protest" vote didn't travel that far left and went directly to Fine Gael. I have no doubt in my mind that the 2004 elections created the illusion that SF were more popular than they really were.

I'm not so sure about the protest vote moving to FG, not in Waterford anyway. Hillary Quinlan got a handful more votes this time but that was with no other FG candidate like there was last time out. John Cummins did significantly increase their vote in ward 3 but I get the feeling that was more due to Maurice than any national factor.

The protest vote this time went to independents as it did all over the country. People are disillusioned with politics and obviously thought "well, they're all the same so I'll vote for someone who's got no party allegiance". This is evidenced by the huge increase in halligan's vote, Davy Daniels again topping the poll by miles and Dick Roche pulling 616 first preference votes.

wfman wrote: »

her father will be 60 at next general election.maybe he has enough.

You might be right. In which case she would run very well and probably retain the seat.

Keith Winters wrote: »

Another thing the party has to tackle in Waterford is who to look to now as their next General Election candidate. As far as I'm concerned Cullinane is a spent force in this regard and if they genuinely want to challenge for Leinster House they need to look elsewhere. But who is there?

Seeing as Brendan Mansfield in the county is on the up and up, I'd guess it would be him. He increased his vote this time around and is highly regarded in the county. He'd have very limited city appeal though, I'd imagine.

wfman

if a general election is called soon it would be very interesting in waterford.
i think cullinane wont run for sf.mansfield would be the only option.
workers party have nobody either i cant see davy walsh running at his age.
ff -would run 3 cullen,kenneally and one from the county.
fg -deasy,coffey and darcy.
labour- o shea.
greens -nobody.
ind -i couldnt see mary roche going.
ind-halligan ran for wp last time would he go as independent?
taking ff candidates and darcy out of it for a minute.city candidates roche,halligan,cullinane,and mccann had 7000 votes between them.
chance that none of these would be running.
wonder if labour would take a chance and run ryan in the city.