As Government formation talks get under way, we reflect on some of the main Talking Points in this year’s General Election campaign in Laois.
1 – Aird continues his poll-topping exploits
In his first General Election campaign, 45 years after first becoming an elected representative, Willie Aird topped the poll for Fine Gael, pulling in more first preferences than Sean Fleming, an outgoing Minister for State, and Brian Stanley, a recent chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
While Aird had always done well in the Portlaoise Municipal District, on this occasion he was seeking votes from way beyond his traditional base.
According to the tallies, he got over 3,500 No 1 votes in the Portlaoise area, which was about 800 more than Brian Stanley, who was closest to him.
He also led the way in Borris-Mountmellick with over 2,600 votes and got almost 1,900 in Graiguecullen-Portarlington, where Sean Fleming cam out on top with just over 2,400.
His poll-topping exploits are a feature of elections in Laois for the past 20 years now – topping the poll in the Locals in 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024. Doing so in a General Election is the biggest feat of all.
2 – A ‘born and bred’ Portlaoise TD
Willie Aird’s grandfather was elected as TD in the 1927 General Election and died suddenly in 1931, while a member of the Dáil.
In the almost 100 years since, there has never been another TD, who was born and raised in the county town.
While Charlie Flanagan and Brian Stanley both live in Portlaoise now, they grew up and went to school in Mountmellick and Mountrath respectively.
Other Laois TDs over the years have come from Abbeyleix (Peadar Maher and Paddy Lalor), Ballacolla (Liam Hyland and John Finlay), Mountmellick (Oliver J Flanagan, Charlie Flanagan and John Moloney), Ballyroan (Charlie McDonald), Mountrath (Brian Stanley) and Kilcavan (Paddy Gorry).
Aird also bucks the trend of previous strong local Portlaoise-based councillors falling short in their efforts to make it to Leinster House.
Fianna Fáil duo Joe Dunne and Jerry Lodge both ran in General Elections in the 1980s, as did Fine Gael’s Tom Keenan. All polled well but never quite made it.
3 – Now who fills Willie’s seat?
With Willie Aird set to sit in the Dáil for the first time on December 18, attention locally will turn to who will be co-opted to fill that vacancy.
An unwritten rule is that the family of the departing member gets first refusal. Willie wife Anne Maria is a formidable operator who was his campaign manager on this occasion and has also huge experience in the IFA, where she has served as the Laois secretary and also was massively instrumental in the election of Francie Gorman as national president late last year.
If she doesn’t seek to fill the vacancy, then it appears that Paddy Buggy is an obvious contender.
Originally from Shaen, just outside Portlaoise, he has run in the Local Elections on three occasions, most recently in June when he contested the Mountmellick/Borris-in-Ossory district and got over 1,000 first preferences but was overtaken by Fianna Fáil’s Seamus McDonald on transfers.
Manager of the Mountmellick Development Association, he also farms part-time and is a member of the IFA.
Another name that could come into the mix is Liam Delaney from The Heath, another very active IFA member and a regular at Fine Gael events. He was heavily involved in Aird’s campaign and has previously hosted ministerial visits to his farm in Derrygarron outside Portlaoise.
3 – Stanley suffers vote loss – but still holds on
Brian Stanley got over 16,000 first preferences as Sinn Féin romped home all over the country in 2020.
On this occasion he was an Independent candidate after a venomous fall out with Sinn Féin and his vote fell to 6,782.
About 6,000 of those 2020 votes were from Offaly, which was no longer part of the constituency though the town of Portarlington as well as Killenard did come back into play.
Despite that drop in support – and a strong campaign from his Sinn Féin successor Maria McCormack – he was still comfortably re-elected.
He’ll now begin life as an Independent TD, without the support of Sinn Féin. He is the first Independent elected in Laois since Oliver J Flanagan in 1948, who later joined Fine Gael.
4 – Bitter rift between Stanleys and Sinn Féin
The rift between Brian Stanley and Sinn Féin is incredibly bitter at this stage and neither Brian nor his wife Caroline spared the party in their post-election interviews on Sunday.
Elected Sinn Féin TDs, led by Mary Lou McDonald, have also fired numerous verbals in Stanley’s direction in various interviews and in McDonald’s Dáil statement under privilege.
It has been a poisonous, venomous, public falling out that is now well beyond repair.
Though there was no public confrontation between Stanley, or his supporters, and his former colleagues at the count centre on Sunday, the Sinn Féin team wasted little time in getting out of there when he arrived. They were well gone by the time he was officially elected.
Caroline Dwane-Stanley remains a member of the party and says she won’t be resigning until she gets answers to questions she wants to put to them. It’s a saga that’s not fully over yet.
5 – Fleming comfortably retains seat but Fianna Fáil not firing fully in Laois
Winning 8,123 first preferences, for a 21.2% share of the vote, meant that Sean Fleming was never in any danger of missing out.
He has now been elected in seven successive General Elections and is one of the longest-serving TDs in the Dáil having first won a seat in 1997.
But while Fianna Fáil increased their number of seats overall, it was a below-average performance in Laois comparatively speaking.
Their 22.53% of the vote is a record low in Laois and is almost identical to what they got nationally. Previously that was never the case: Fianna Fáil in Laois have generally well out-performed the national figure.
Their share of the vote in Laois has gone from 35% in 2016 to 29% in 2020 to 22% in 2024. That drop has also been evident in the Local Elections where their 29% in June of this year was their lowest ever.
Austin Stack, who was a late addition to the ticket just three weeks before polling day, got little traction and with just 502 first preferences, he was the second lowest candidate in the field.
6 – Big Sinn Féin performance – what now for Maria McCormack?
Sinn Féin were thrown – or threw themselves – into turmoil in mid-October when Brian Stanley announced his resignation.
But they quickly rallied the troops, selected Maria McCormack as their candidate and embarked on a vibrant campaign, with a seemingly endless list of outside TDs and MPs coming to Laois to offer their support.
Mary Lou McDonald was in Laois twice, David Cullinan, the party’s spokesperson on Health was here also, as was high-profile representatives from the north like Michelle Gildernew, Pat Cullen and Daire Hughes.
It ended with McCormack winning just under 5,000 votes less than six months after getting just 276 in the Local Elections.
With Brian Stanley the guts of 1,800 ahead after the first count, it was far too much for McCormack to make up.
But it was still a very strong performance from the first-time Dáil candidate. But what does Maria McCormack do in politics now? With no Local Elections until 2029, that’s a long time to have to wait.
Could a run for the Seanad be in the offing? With 39 TDs, Sinn Féin will technically be able to have at least 10 ‘inside’ nominations.
They will have to choose those wisely though as they have only 100 councillors around the country, key members of the Seanad electorate, and that is less than half of what Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have.
You can be sure Sinn Féin will want a presence in Laois though so don’t be surprised if Maria McCormack will be travelling the country seeking support ahead of the Seanad elections on January 30.
7 – No Independents Day as Moran and Mullally experience disappointment
The pre-election talk was that Independent candidates would be the big winners.
But it didn’t really transpire that way. Brian Stanley’s presence in Laois as an Independent muddied the waters here and it certainly wasn’t a help to the likes of Elaine Mullally and Aisling Moran who were also Independent.
Despite energetic and well-organised campaigns, they both underperformed relative to expectations.
Moran got 2,970 first preferences while Mullally got 2,438. While Moran significantly grew her vote in the Graiguecullen-Portarlington area, she got fewer than 500 in the other two areas.
Mullally did strongest in the Graiguecullen-Portarlington district but the tallies show it was still lower than 1,000.
Other Independent candidates, Pauline Flanagan and Jason Lynch, both from Portlaoise, were the last two names into the race and polled just 578 and 170 votes respectively.
8 – Aontú, People Before Profit and Green candidates struggle
Aontú and People Before Profit had candidates in every constituency and Mary Hand for Aontú was the biggest vote-getter outside of the top six in Laois, and the only one to break 1,000.
People Before Profit’s Ken Mooney from Mountrath was the youngest in the race and got 745, just two behind Rosie Palmer (Greens).
With the Greens suffering massive losses all over the country, Palmer was up against it but got only about 160 votes fewer than Pippa Hackett in Offaly, who had a Ministerial role for the past five years.
SEE ALSO – Check out all our 2024 General Election coverage here
