Sinead Sheppard
With Cork East’s Fine Gael TD David Stanton having announced his intention to bow out at the next general election, has an opportunity opened for ambitious Cobh FG councillor Sinéad Sheppard to make it to the Big House? A mother of three, Sheppard originally won fame back in 2001 when she was a member of the pop band Six and became a household name. Now she wants to become a political figure on something like the same scale.
A fluent Irish speaker, Sheppard runs a well-regarded Irish dance school and is well known for her cultural activities. This recognition proved important when she turned her attention to politics, being elected in 2009 to Cobh town council, then in 2014 to Cork County Council for the Cobh electoral area and was re-elected in 2019. Now, with Stanton departing the scene, she has her eyes firmly set on the big prize – a seat in the Dáil.
Cork East is a four-seater, with one seat each for Sinn Féin, FG, Fianna Fáil and Labour, but the redrawing of the constituency in the last boundary review has taken the greater part of the Mallow area out of the constituency, decimating Labour TD Seán Sherlock’s support base.
Sherlock has bowed to the inevitable and has announced that he will not be standing again. But another Mallow man, councillor James Kennedy, is likely to be the Labour candidate.
On all sides, however, there is common agreement that Labour will lose its seat. But which of the main contenders will be strong enough to take it?
In 2020, with two strong candidates, FF scored 26.5%; SF notched 23%; with FG further back on 19.5%.
National opinion polls since then show FF easing back five points or so since the general election, while FG has dropped marginally and SF has surged up more than five points. This doesn’t suggest that FG are well placed to take a second seat, which means Sheppard will have it all to do.
Her immediate problem is that the most obvious running mate in FG is Noel McCarthy in the Fermoy district. He topped the poll here in the 2019 locals (with over 3,000 first preferences), while Sheppard was fourth in first-count votes in Cobh with 1,370.
Sinéad Sheppard will be relying on her high cultural profile to bring in transfers but she is not regarded as an assiduous constituency worker by her FG colleagues, who are likely to concentrate their efforts on McCarthy.
Geography, of course, is all important. While the joint ticket of Sheppard and McCarthy has one from the south and one from the north of the constituency, the main local electoral area, Midleton (which Stanton came from), is left to SF’s Pat Buckley.
Given SF’s improved position generally, widespread anti-Government anger in Midleton at the failure of flood defences and so on, Buckley’s personal vote can be expected to increase substantially.
His running mate will be Melissa Mullane. She is from Mallow, most of which district, to Sherlock’s continuing dismay, has been moved out of the constituency. But she is well got in local agricultural and co-operative circles and, with an expected heavy transfer from Buckley, will certainly be in the running.
It is expected that SF will score over 30% in the next general election. That is a quota and a half and, while not enough to guarantee a second seat, it is certainly enough to give the party a reasonable chance.
FF, of course, is hopeful, even desperate, to take a second seat. In 2020, there was shock when outgoing TD Kevin O’Keeffe from Mitchelstown, son of former FF TD Ned O’Keeffe, failed to hold his seat, losing out to Youghal’s James O’Connor, the youngest TD elected in 2020. It was expected that O’Keeffe would be eager to bounce back into the fray but rumours are growing locally that O’Keeffe will step aside to allow his sister, councillor Deirdre O’Brien, to have a run.
This will help FF meet its gender requirements – parties need to put up women as 40% of their national candidates to qualify for certain state funding. O’Keeffe, it is suggested, would then be co-opted on to the council seat won by his sister.
The plan is to maintain a strong balance between candidates from the north and the south of the constituency but it puts O’Connor under pressure to challenge Buckley for votes in the Youghal and Midleton areas. Otherwise, he could lose out to his northern running mate.
At the moment, SF looks the best bet for two seats, with FF snapping at its heels. SF is expected to do best from voters who desert Labour or the Greens, and their transfers are also expected to favour SF and strengthen its chances of that second seat.
Where does this leave twinkle toes Sinéad Sheppard? On current projections, she faces an uphill battle but there is an even bigger threat possibly looming and that comes from one of FG’s merchant princes. There is a strong belief, held by many in FG locally, that Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney, party grandee and a significant voice in Cork FG circles, will transfer from Cork South Central, where he came in third of the four winners on the last count.
Coveney has moved his family home across the bay, out of Cork South Central and into Cobh in Cork East. Local Blueshirts suggest the only reason for this is an intention to switch constituencies.
If he does seek a nomination in Cork East, it is thought that would scupper Sheppard’s chances of a nomination. The gender balance could be resolved then by running Fermoy councillor Kay Dawson. McCarthy, also from Fermoy, could be sweetened by being offered a Seanad nomination.
FG, then, have two options: McCarthy and Sheppard, or Coveney and Dawson.
Some in FG speculate that Coveney’s high standing (locally if not nationally) could even bump up the party vote and give FG a chance for that second seat but most commentators dismiss that as wishful thinking.
Sinéad Sheppard would find it hard to compete with Coveney at convention but if, Coveney stays out, she will probably, as her supporters claim, be more transfer friendly than McCarthy.
Against all that fevered speculation there is the alternative view that says FF finance minister and Cork South Central TD Michael McGrath is destined for Brussels – as European commissioner – meaning that Covetous should not fear running in that constituency again. And the word from FG circles is that a poll the party commissioned in Cork East showed Coveney performing poorly.
Sinéad Sheppard would be boosted if FF failed to get that second seat and if that failure was down to a failed campaign by O’Connor. Then she could expect a better transfer from O’Connor in the southern part of the constituency, enabling her to leapfrog McCarthy, who would definitely be ahead on the first count.
It’s all very speculative, however. Sheppard’s high profile hasn’t been matched by any solid constituency work and, in the long run, that will probably count against her.
Still, it looks to be an intriguing and complex battle, so we can expect a lot of internal party skulduggery here in the hallowed traditions of Irish politics.
