Tight race expected in six-seat Mullingar Local Electoral Area

There are six seats in the Mullingar LEA, which makes it the largest electoral area, in numeric terms, in the county.

This is going to be a very tight race because all outgoing councillors are once again seeking re-election and some of them have long track records in the field.

Hazel Smyth of the Green Party went on maternity leave in March and was temporarily replaced by party colleague Carol Okeke, who lives in the Kinnegad area.

Smyth is seeking re-election, while Okeke is running in the Kinnegad Local Electoral Area.

The current breakdown is three Fianna Fáil – Bill Collentine, Aoife Davitt and Ken Glynn; the Green Party’s Cllr Okeke; Fine Gael member Andrew Duncan and non-party member, Mick Dollard.

A long-time public representative, Cllr Dollard’s position would be viewed as being “as safe as houses”, as political pundits tend to put these things, even though as an independent he no longer has the backing of his former colleagues, the Labour Party, behind him.

In 2019, he topped the poll with 1,286 votes and close on his heels was Fianna Fáil’s Ken Glynn who was fewer than 100 votes behind him with 1,192.

Given the anticipated swing against Fianna Fáil, it might be difficult for the three sitting councillors to hold their seats this time out. Cllr Glynn is anticipated to poll strongly and to be assured of a return but Cllr Bill Collentine and Cllr Aoife Davitt will pretty much be competing against each other. It’s impossible to say how that battle is going to go: in 2019, the two were neck and neck with Davitt just 24 votes ahead on first round preferences of 886 to Collentine’s 862 and it took to the 10th count for both to get elected.

In 2019, the Fine Gael team was Andrew Duncan and Gerry Heery and the same two are running this time out. Cllr Duncan, on 788, obtained 65 more first preferences than the respectable 723 secured by Heery, which is worthy of comment because although Heery was over 140 votes ahead of the Green Party’s Hazel Smyth, who got 581 first preferences, it was actually Smyth who benefited most in the long run from transfers, passing Heery out to get elected, against earlier expectations.

Not to be underestimated this time out is the fact that in Minister Peter Burke, the two Fine Gael candidates have a powerful advocate – and the view in some circles outside Fine Gael is that could put them in the running for two seats. The fact that Simon Harris has been moving towards a somewhat stronger line on immigration than Leo Varadkar is another factor that some believe will have a favourable influence on Fine Gael’s performance.

There is much comment to the effect that the Green Party is set to take a hammering in this election, particularly in rural Ireland, so the reckoning is the writing may well be on the wall for Hazel Smith – although given how well she did on transfers in 2019, she could pull it out of the bag. On top of that, as a young person and a young mother, she would possibly resonate as a candidate with many younger voters.

A big surprise in the 2019 election was the fact that Sinn Féin failed to have any councillor elected in Westmeath. But given the general election success, just months later, of Sorca Clarke – who had failed to hold on to the council seat she had won in Mullingar five years earlier – it’s clear there is a fair measure of support for Sinn Féin out there, and in this election the party is running two candidates, Damian Rooney and Julie McCourt.

That said, the view locally is that Sinn Féin is not by any means guaranteed a seat. One local pundit who studies the figures says that the party tends to do better in general elections than in locals, while another has pointed out that the candidates did not have a strong profile up to the announcement of the election.

Traditionally, Labour always had a very strong following in Mullingar town, and while the party currently has no sitting councillor in Mullingar, it has an interesting candidate running in Fidelma Bennett. Fidelma is a daughter of the late Jimmy Bennett, who was a highly revered Labour councillor in Mullingar in the 1970s and ’80s and his name still carries some weight. Party sources say she has been getting a warm enough reception on the doorsteps.

The three other candidates in the mix are Patrick Hussey, who is running as a non-party candidate; Margaret Maguire, of Ireland First; and Ali Morris of the Social Democrats. Hussey and Maguire are among the candidates who have misgivings about immigration and there would certainly be some support for their position on that issue.

Some are speculating that those – and also the Social Democrat candidate Ali Morris – could benefit from support from a cohort who would have a tendency to vote anti-government but who have been disappointed by Sinn Féin.

There is also a suspicion that some people who want to send a message to government may give these smaller parties or independents their first preference, while giving their number 2 votes to the candidate they might otherwise have been expected to support, knowing that the candidates are unlikely to be elected and that as a consequence, they will have been able to send a message without losing the benefits of their votes.

The one thing that can be concluded about the Mullingar result is that it’s impossible to call the full outcome. Among the sitting parties, there are going to be casualties, but no one is sure yet whether those casualties will be drawn from the ranks of Fianna Fáil or the Green Party.

Our prediction is that Mick Dollard will hold his seat, as will Ken Glynn and Andrew Duncan.

Of the three remaining seats, there is a strong possibility that Gerry Heery will take one; that either Bill Collentine or Aoife Davitt will take another – and there will be a battle royale for the 6th seat, between Sinn Féin, the Green Party, with also the possibility of Fidelma Bennett being in the mix.