Longford's Joe Flaherty eyes up Seanad bid after disappointment of losing Dáil seat

Joe Flaherty has confirmed he will seek a place in the Seanad after he suffered disappointment when he lost his Dáil seat in this General Election.

While Longford retained a seat courtesy of Fine Gael's Micheál Carrigy, the Fianna Fáil TD was unable to retain his own seat.

It was evident from early on Saturday morning one week ago as ballot boxes were being tallied at TUS Athlone that Flaherty’s seat was in serious jeopardy and while a chink of light emerged on Sunday afternoon, hinting that eliminations and transfers might spark a Houdini like revival, the great recovery did not materialise and Fianna Fáil’s worst fears were confirmed.

Remarkably, in 2020, as a four -seat constituency, Fianna Fáil captured two seats and this time around as a five-seater they party managed to win just one seat.

READ NEXT: WATCH | A Mother's Love's a Blessing: Maura Higgins' mammy Sharon proud of how Longford star is embracing epic I'm A Celebrity journey

It was an outcome that was against the national trend.

Initially, early tallies showed Flaherty in the top five, sitting just behind Peter Burke in 4th place.

It seemed he was in a good position to regain his seat.

However, as boxes continued to be counted it did not look good for Flaherty who was swiftly passed out by the likes of Clarke and Troy.

As the tallies came to a close Flaherty was left in 6th place behind the top five contenders, Burke, Troy, Moran, Carrigy and Clarke.

READ NEXT: Two Longford men have a hundred years of counting between them

In an interview with the Longford Leader early on Saturday Joe made clear that he knew it would be a struggle back to the house.

“I have an uphill battle on a bad pushbike,” he said.

The hill continued to grow for Joe and by the end of the tallies it was clear there was a lot of ground he’d need to cover to be in with a chance to win.

When the first count was called Joe remained in 6th place with 1,767 votes between himself and Sinn Féin's Sorca Clarke.

More and more counts were completed and called, and this gap didn’t narrow.

Joe remained optimistic that he could still pull through.

“I started the morning at around 2,000 votes behind Sorca Clarke, I’ve pulled back on that I think the margin has narrowed but it’s still a big ask,” he explained shortly after Count 7 was called on Sunday.

“I need a couple of things to go in my favour, but it’s not over until the trumpet plays, so look I’m still there.”

Earlier in the day Patrick Donohoe of Shannonside spoke to the Longford Leader about Joe’s chances.

Patrick is a veteran in the General Election coverage having covered four counts throughout his time.

“He’s really at risk of losing his seat, I’d say calling it right now early on Sunday morning it’s an uphill battle for Joe to get in there, it’s going to come down between him and Sorca Clarke.

“How transfers are going from different parties and different candidates being eliminated will dictate whether Joe is either in or out.

“Right now it’s looking very difficult for him.”

Patrick did think Joe could climb back up into the running but it was a slim chance.

“He will need about 50% of Barry Campion’s transfers from Sinn Féin, he will need a lot of Gerry Warnock's transfers who is a town candidate.

“But, the concern is there is only a turnout for about 42% in Longford town alone and Joe is a Longford town candidate.

“It will come down to a couple hundred votes, Joe is an expert vote analyst and he believes he’s still within a chance so let’s see how it plays out.”

Joe seemed to be of a similar mind, speaking on how he could manage to swing the win he said, “I need to keep taking votes on the transfers, I’m doing reasonably well but Sorca is still picking up a few extra on me here and there, the big one I suppose is the Labour vote.

“I don't know where that’s going to go because she’s Mullingar-based, the same as Sorca, I’m hoping a significant portion will go to ‘Boxer’ Moran and ideally I need Moran elected before the big three distributions which will be Gerry Warnock, Barry Campion and Paul Hogan.

“They are significant but Sorca is going to get the lion’s share of the Barry Campion ones.”

When Fidelma Bennett, the Labour Party candidate was eliminated Flaherty only received 98 votes in comparison to Clarke's 421.

The gap between them was now 2,388 as she was now also ahead of Micheál Carrigy.
In an earlier conversation with Joe, he spoke on the importance of optimism in races like this.

“I’m a naturally optimistic person. When you’re fat and you’re bald the one thing you have going for you is optimism,” he joked.

“Nobody goes into an election thinking that they’re not going to win, it’s like a game of football you have to have a positive mindset going in.”

But, it was not to be as the Lanesboro native was eliminated after the final count which confirmed the election of his FF colleague Robert Troy and FG's Micheál Carrigy.

He finished with a total of 6,563 votes and he was no doubt disappointed.

In the earlier conversation at around 5pm he spoke about the work he and his camp of supporters had put in throughout the three-week campaign.

“I was very dependent on my family, friends, volunteers and supporters and they put in a trojan effort. I’m disappointed for them if we don’t get the result we want.”