Waterford's winners and losers
Sinn Féin's TDs in Waterford, David Cullinane and Conor McGuinness as the party secured the much anticipated Déise Double. Photo: Joe Evans
As the dust settles and the election staffers pack up the tables and store the ballot boxes safely away, the winners and losers of the General Election in Waterford have become clear. From history being made to historic holds being restored, here's our sense of who has come out of the count centre holding their head high.
After what seemed like a week of waiting, but the Returning Officer assured us all was only 12 counts, we received confirmation that Sinn Féin had secured two seats. Sinn Féin learned their lessons from the General Election in 2020, when the Sinn Féin spokesperson for Health and the first TD to be elected this year, David Cullinane received nearly 40% of the first preference vote, doubling the quota. Deputy Cullinane's impressive surplus transferred left and secured a seat for the Green Party's Marc Ó Cathasaigh.
There were some inevitable regrets in Sinn Féin's Parnell Square headquarters that they hadn't run two candidates. Deputy Cullinane admitted that only running one candidate in Waterford was a "mistake" but that they wouldn't be making the same error this time out.
Running two candidates is not without risk, however, as Fine Gael found out four years ago - splitting the first preference votes and failing to get either candidate over the line on transfers.
In Waterford, Deputy Cullinane was always expected to get elected - likely in the first round. This was borne out in reality, with the Sinn Féin man waltzing home to raucous applause. It was his west Waterford party colleague who was the risk. McGuinness strategically positioned himself as a TD for West Waterford and Dungarvan, seeking to secure both the surplus vote of his better-known friend but also the non-partisan support in his locality. We can look back now and question whether the major parties should have run a blocking candidate, which could have reduced the west transfers - as former Minister Martin Cullen did - but nothing can take away the image of McGuinness singing Óró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile atop the crowd now.
Amid a mild national underperformance compared to 2020, Sinn Féin can walk away with their heads held very high having secured the Déise double!
'Who will be blamed for the failure of Waterford Airport's development?' we asked before the General Election as blame was being passed around like a hot potato.
The candidates for blame were Green Party TD Marc Ó Cathasaigh, whose now-former party leader Minister Eamon Ryan has been accused of being asleep at the wheel of the Department of Transport, or Minister James "pig in a poke" Lawless' party colleague Minister Mary Butler - who was quick to distance herself from the comments.
Ultimately it was the Green Party, nationally and locally, to receive much of the blame for government failures in the past four years. Ó Cathasaigh was quick to note the national picture following his elimination, noting that he would feel there would be more need for introspection had his fortunes differed from the national picture. Instead, only his party leader looks set to retain his seat out of the Green cohort. He is one of two sitting TDs to lose his seat, yet it is hard to include Ó Cathasaigh as a loser. Truly it is the Green Party who lost this seat - Ó Cathasaigh is merely an unwilling passenger of a sinking ship.
Former Senator Cummins, flanked by former Senator Cummins, was hoisted high above his crowd of supporters. Political posters were raised and toddlers were held aloft as Fine Gael in Waterford corrected a surprising absence from the Déise's Oireachtas lineage.
John, like his father Maurice, had reached the heights of the Seanad and John, like his father Maurice, had ambitions of higher office. On his second attempt, he achieved that dream - made even sweeter, he said, by finally getting the Cummins name into the Dáil.
In 2020, Fine Gael suffered from running two separate candidates, with Dungarvan Councillor Damien Geoghegan splitting the vote with the newly elected TD. This time, the party sought to invest heavily into Cummins' campaign. One rival TD had noted ahead of the election that Fine Gael had more election posters in a single housing estate than they could afford for their entire campaign.
Cummins credited his ground team for the victory, but the time spent raising his prominence as a Senator was certainly a factor. John Cummins TD doesn't need to raise his head, his team raised him instead.
Cummins may diplomatically give the credit to his canvassing team, but his odds were certainly improved when Independent TD Matt Shanahan was surrounded by controversy and attracted significant criticism due to projecting an election message onto the side of the hospice ward at UHW. Politically, Shanahan is often considered to have a similar stance to the major political parties, and indeed refused to rule out joining them if the deal was right when asked by this publication. His error was likely to his rivals' gain - especially as we worked through 12 counts.
An incumbent TD, Matt Shanahan was elected in 2020 by favourable transfers, the strong topical nature of, at the time, his campaign's single issue 24/7 cardiac care and the poor performance of Fine Gael in Waterford. None of these factors were in play this time as Fine Gael got their strategy right, the Déise looks more towards the airport, and transfers were entirely unpredictable.
Still, he managed to get within 993 votes of fourth position and it went down to the line. In reality, the 639 vote advantage McGuinness had over his Independent rival would grow to 993 in the final round but it could easily have been very different.
Shanahan's two-to-one sweep of Dr Ronan Cleary's transfers in the tenth count made a last-minute surge look momentarily possible. The historical connections between Councillor Mary Roche and Shanahan coopting each other into council seats left Shanahan in a decent position as her 4,887 were set to be distributed. There were 1,853 non-transferable votes in the final count that could easily have swayed the vote in Shanahan's favour, but unlike in 2020, the transfers went against Shanahan.
A loud and constant voice for Waterford in the Dáil, Shanahan said it was too early to discuss a possible Seanad run as the odds stacked against him. He may have lost this election, but it is likely he will be back.
The soft left-wing parties will be disappointed by their showing in the election this year. The likely election of two Sinn Féin TDs in Waterford was always going to make life difficult for the soft-left parties of the Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats. In Waterford especially, the Green Party always looked like it was in trouble, but Labour and the Social Democrats would both have hoped to mount a stronger challenge in the Déise.
In the red corner, looking to revive the historical union vote in Waterford, Sadhbh O'Neill and the Labour Party will be disappointed with their results of just 2.8% of the first preference vote. The Social Democratic candidate, Mary Roche was the last to be eliminated - leading to the runoff 12th count - her car wrapping undoubtedly leading to her strongest General Election performance yet.
Both Sadhbh O'Neill and Mary Roche will be dismayed that the left-pack transfers were so inconsistent and didn't allow them to challenge for the final seat, yet both built a national profile at a key time with the Seanad elections just around the corner. Overall, a mixed bag.
The much-discussed far-right was too splintered and factionalised in Waterford to build a meaningful challenge. Certainly vote transfers to Dr Ronan Cleary of Aontú allowed him to survive until the 10th count yet his only impact on the final seating was to whom his transfers would go. Transfers across the board were extremely inconsistent, the far-right was not immune to that either.
The stack of independent candidates spread their first preference votes extremely thin, and transfers were anything but predictable - Killian Mangan benefitted about as much from the elimination of Aaron Joyce and Mark O'Neill as anyone else.
There were mild concerns raised during the campaign that the right could pose a challenge but ultimately, it petered out. Maybe this just wasn't the Right time for Aontú Et. Al.
