The Labour Party has failed to land a number of high-profile individuals from the worlds of sport, medicine and politics that it had targeted for its general election ticket.
With an election widely expected to take place before the end of the year, The Irish Times has learned that Labour made an informal approach sounding out eight time All-Ireland winning former Dublin footballer Philly McMahon about whether he would be interested in running for the Dáil.
A similar approach is understood to have been made to Dr Rhona Mahony, the former master of the National Maternity Hospital.
Former Fianna Fáil and Independent senator Averil Power, now chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society, confirmed she had been approached by the party.
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“I was approached out of the blue by the Labour Party and said no. I told them I appreciated the offer but have no intention of going back into politics,” Ms Power said.
Mr McMahon and Dr Mahony said they had no comment when contacted.
Party sources said the expectation was that if any of the high-profile individuals were agreeable, they would have been chosen to run in Dublin Bay North. Labour will be seeking to retain a seat in the constituency vacated as a result of Aodhán Ó Ríordáin’s election to the European Parliament earlier this year.
It is understood that talks did not progress, the individuals approached did not seriously consider entering politics and that things were never formalised to the extent that meetings were held with Labour leader Ivana Bacik TD.
The party held seven Dáil seats going into the local and European elections. However, with Mr Ó Ríordáin now an MEP and former leader and Wexford TD Brendan Howlin and Cork East TD Seán Sherlock opting not to run for the Dáil again, Labour will be defending almost half of its seats without the benefit of having an incumbent candidate.
Speaking this week at a party meeting held before the beginning of the Dáil term, Ms Bacik said 16 candidates had already been selected to run for the party, which she said had been buoyed by the results of the local and European elections in June.
However, she did not put a figure on how many seats Labour expected to win in a general election, other than to say she wanted to return with more than it has.
Party sources said last week that Labour expected to be in the running in about a dozen constituencies, although others believe the party could struggle to retain its current level of representation in the Dáil.
Ms Bacik said Labour would not be involved in a vote-transfer agreement with any other party before the general election, but that it would be open to engaging afterwards with parties and individual TDs “who share our vision, our centre-left and social democratic values”.
A spokeswoman for the Labour Party said: “Like any political party, Labour has been seeking to recruit and select candidates for the upcoming general election and will be making announcements in the coming weeks.”
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