CONSTITUENCY PROFILE: MEATH EAST: 3 SEATS:CO MEATH is a regular target of boundary revisions and the latest cut in Meath East has been a severe blow for Fianna Fáil sitting TD Thomas Byrne and Labour Senator Dominic Hannigan.
A significant tranche of the coast, including Laytown, Bettystown, Julianstown, Donacarney into Donore and Mornington, have moved to the Louth constituency.
It was the political heartland of Byrne and Hannigan, and will have a significant impact with 10,000 voters gone. The town of Kells has moved into Meath East, bringing a population of 10,000 but 7,500 voters.
In the three-seat constituency, Fine Gael’s sitting TD Shane McEntee can be the only candidate confident of getting re-elected, having a very high profile in the constituency. The Nobber-based TD won a 2005 byelection and retained the seat in the 2007 general election.
After that it is open season on the two remaining seats and geography will be a deciding factor. The constituency divides into north and south, with an electorate in each half of about 31,000. With the decision of sitting TD Mary Wallace to stand down there is no Dáil representation in the mainly urban south for the voters of Dunshaughlin, Dunboyne, Ratoath and Ashbourne. The expectation is that at least one TD has to come from that area.
Fianna Fáil faces a drubbing nationally but in Meath East most expect that there has to be a seat for the party after securing 43.56 per cent of the vote in 2007. Byrne confounded expectations by winning the seat against Labour party favourite Hannigan.
This election is do-or-die for Hannigan who now has an address in Dunshaughlin. Labour’s national rating shows there is a seat to be won here and he will have some support in Kells where there has always been a pocket of Labour votes.
Kells is where the incumbent Fianna Fáil TD will be hoping to mine support but Byrne also faces vote losses from Independent and former Fianna Fáil executive member Sharon Keoghan, who resigned when she failed to get selected. Geography dictated there would be one candidate in the north and one in the south: Cllr Nick Killian.
A community activist, he is based in Wallace’s heartland of Ratoath where she retained a poll-topping personal vote. The question is whether that vote has gone with the departing TD and the recession, or if Killian will harness the remaining vote and be the dark horse of this contest.
He faces huge competition from Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty, a Ratoath councillor who stood for the first time as a general election candidate in 2007 and commanded almost 4,500 votes.
Sinn Féin polled a respectable 1,695 votes in 2007, and while not in contention Michael Gallagher’s transfers will be significant, as will those of Seán Ó Buachalla for the Green Party and Independent Joseph Bonner.
