Three ex-TDs on life after politics and predicting the next election outcomes

The Big Story is a digital, subscriber-only series by The Southern Star. Each part will bring subscribers closer to the stories that matter in West Cork.

Where are they now? Three ex-TDs – a decade on can be read or listened to. Scroll down to the bottom of each interview for audio/video podcast versions of each interview.

Read our previous Big Story – Gaza: Paul Cunningham on witnessing horror unfold

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It's a big election year in Ireland, with local and European election campaigns kicking off. There's the small matter of a looming general election too, widely expected to happen at some point this year.

For The Big Story, Southern Star editor SIOBHÁN CRONIN caught up with three former West Cork TDs – Jim Daly, Michael McCarthy, Noel Harrington – to ask about their thoughts on the current political landscape, what life was like as a TD and afterwards, and where they see the next general election going

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It’s life, Jim, but not as you knew it

Former FG TD Jim Daly with some of his supporters after being re-elected to Dáil Éireann in 2019.

Jim Daly served as a TD in Cork South West from 2011-2020, and as junior minister of state for mental health and older people from 2017-2020. The Drinagh man is now ceo of the Private Hospitals Association.

THOUGH he has now left the dramatic world of national politics behind him, Drinagh native Jim Daly remembers what first attracted him to it.

‘I had the pub in Rosscarbery and I remember a minister came to visit back in the late 90s, and I was fascinated with the fuss made of him – the guards and all the people around the minister.’

But he recalled he was always interested in politics in a way.

‘My dad would’ve been a canvasser and a campaigner for Fine Gael. I wondered could I do that, and then I owned the pub in Rosscarbery for a few years and then over the counter I heard people talking … so that landed me into politics, but I always went into it to see what it was like. Terri Prone reminds me that I told her long time ago that my ambition was to be a ‘former minister’ – even before I went to the Dáil, I had that in my head.’

It was during his time as a junior minister at the Department of Health (with responsibility for mental health and older people) from 2017 to 2020 that Jim Daly realised he might have achieved as much as he could in that career.

‘It wasn’t that I had arrived, but I kind of knew that I had achieved as much as I could, and being in there for three years, I learned what I could do as a minister, but more importantly, the limitations of it. It was really striking – what I couldn’t do. If you want to ask me about what politics is and what you can, and cannot do – I saw in your paper, a couple of weeks ago, where terrycloth nappies were being introduced, and given out free to new mothers. I was delighted to see it, but I googled it just to check – I put that motion down in Cork County Council 20 years almost to the day, if not to the month, and it is there on the record. I had a motion calling on the Council to support terrycloth nappies by giving them to young mums. I had all the figures and facts about how much disposable nappies were costing in waste to the environment.’

But he’s happy now the idea was finally taken on board.

‘When you see then, 20 years later, it was implemented … you go in very enthusiastic to realise very quickly you are really limited in what you can do.

‘So when I assumed the office of Minister of State I had a bigger budget than many of the senior ministers and I had very much autonomy over all the people in mental health. Simon Harris was my boss, but I really had everything you could want in a minister – there was no wondering if I was a senior minister, could I do much more. That was a very busy department and I did stand in for Simon, and I kind of felt I saw as much as I wanted to see.’

Basically, he knew his time in politics was coming to an end. ‘It was great and good, and I don’t want to knock it, but after 16 years I felt there was nowhere further for me to go anymore, to do any more than I had done. I had given it my all and I felt maybe I could do more out in the “real” world. There was also a very strong family pull.’

This was in 2019, but he says it was really 2018 that he made his decision to leave.

‘My eldest boy was 14 then and I had four boys and a girl, it was a crucial time in their rearing and you get so fed up of ringing to say “happy birthday” from a hotel room, and missing every single Christmas play for every single one of them year-on-year. So it got harder and it took its toll, so that with my ambition and the pull of family life, I just said “do you know what, Jim? You’re way in on top of your head here.”

'It’s great and it’s good and you are achieving so much, but it was not nearly as much as I would like to have been achieving. That I mean, making the kind of change that I thought I could make, those two married together, and I decided – primarily for family reasons – but there was also an element of the realisation of how political life was.'

But was he also watching the Fine Gael vote back in his constituency?

‘It’s a very reasonable question, very valid. We had a vote sharing arrangement. Fine Gael really flatlined. I will be very honest, there was absolutely no fear … for the next election. I think I had a very strong record of delivery, had a good office and a great team with me. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I think the surest election I would ever have faced would have been the election of 2020 had I stood there.’

But now with no Fine Gael TD in West Cork, did he not seeing that coming – was the decline not inevitable or was 2020 an aberration?

‘I think it was an aberration ... to be fair, I think we had difficulties at the time about candidate selection and I don’t want to rehash it, but I would have told Paschal (Donohoe) in no uncertain terms at that time that we won’t have a seat in West Cork with the way we are going and with the candidates and strategy we adopted – but I wasn’t listened to and that is fine – I have no monopoly of wisdom, and there were many other voices in West Cork who would be quite senior and would have felt the same – so it didn’t come as a total shock to those of us on the ground.

‘But I’ll put it this way – I genuinely think it certainly wasn’t a fear of that election – hand on heart – that led me to leave politics. I made my decision to leave around 2018, left in 2019, took up a post in private hospitals in May 2022 so there wasn’t any plan. I genuinely walked off the stage in politics, everyone thought I was going to get a job in the local primary care centre in Clonakility.

‘I remember getting a call from the local gardaí one night to say “Jim the alarm is going off is the primary care centre” – and I had nothing to do with it!

‘I did a bit of consultancy work and over time I was looking for opportunities – applied for one or two jobs that I didn’t get. Then the ceo of the private hospitals came up in March 2022. I was gone from politics two years, and had made my decision four years before, and that suited me. I had always had an interest in health and healthcare matters all the way through.’

HSE 'cannot' plan ahead

While the private hospitals had a strong role in assisting government through Covid, since then our health service has been going through some very bad patches, variously described as being on its knees, or a ‘basket case’ – so does Jim see a bigger role for the private hospitals in the delivery of public healthcare in Ireland?

‘I’m gone from public life, so for me to be standing up now and to point out flaws in the public system does more to pit them and us, and that is very much the space I am not in. We are a tiny island with a small population so let’s be real here – this idea of having voluntary, and not-for-profit, and public and private, and section 38 … it makes it very complicated.

‘When you have a Department of Health that sets policy and looks exclusively through the eyes of the HSE and ignores the private sector and then you have a political ideology that supports “public is good, private is bad” – I think it is so deeply flawed, divisive, unhelpful – I think every health system should have one focus only, and that is patient-centred.

‘Really, do any of us care when our loved ones are getting care, what construct is behind the entity that delivers that healthcare? We should be looking at a single health system and supporting that and making sure they all collaborate together.

‘For example, Tralee General works very closely with the Bons, on a local level, but the more we try to centralise that and do it from the centre – as the HSE does everything – it is just fraught with difficulty and I notice now that the private hospitals are kind of saying we do want to help the public system – by the way the amount of work they do for the public system is tiny – about 3% – they would do more, but the problem is and the line of sight is always fire-fighting, and we are always saying, look if you say to us over the next three or four years can we get 300 beds or 200 beds or 150 – no problem, the price can be agreed, pricing isn’t an issue. It’s very easy to price healthcare with loads of existing models.’

He says trying to get the HSE to engage in long-term planning is a real issue.

‘We cannot get the public system ever to plan ahead – they are on a budget system year-to-year which is crazy. You can never run a health system on a hand-to-mouth basis over 12 months. You should have a more strategic view.’

But does he ever feel we might be sliding into a system, like the United States, whereby healthcare will only be available to people who can pay for it?

‘At the end of the day, we are all paying for healthcare, one way or another, if you think of it. People who are using private healthcare are just paying twice for it – they are paying through their taxes … and if they are going through the private system, they are paying an additional tax, which is their premium for their health policy.

'I think that is coming at it from the wrong end, and it is looking at it from the symptom. We just need to stand back and look at the system we have. The funding of it is easy enough to work out, because if you put together the amount of taxation … about €23bn or €24bn that is going into the health system from public monies and €2bn going in from private insurance, so you get about €25bn or €26bn, and that is the cost of our healthcare.

'We can decide how that is paid, all day every day, and we can change that structure very easily – we can do it according to people’s means, but I think that designing our health system built around a fear that only those who have money can access it is the wrong way to be coming at it.

‘It goes back to that narrative of the divide between the public and private which is ideological by its very nature. Now, the Bons group is the largest private hospital I represent – they are a not-for-profit group. If you look at it, everything they make, goes back into building, they built a €76m cancer centre. It’s really important that we continue to invest in healthcare … but the privates do it very well – they can innovate much quicker, they can make decisions much faster. Do they get better value for money, which is what the taxpayer would like to see? They do, very simply, and I’m quoting the Taoiseach [Leo Varadkar at the time of this interview] speaking at our conference last year. He said if we give €100m to the public system we have no idea what we get for it, but if we give €100m to the private system, we know exactly how many hips and knees and heart procedures and cancer procedures … whatever.

‘The private system is so meticulous, it will tell you exactly what you get for what you pay. With the public system, we have no idea where the money is going between the layers and layers of management ….’

'The votes are there' for Fine Gael

Many say there are now three strong candidates in Cork South West, so does Jim think there is any way back for Fine Gael at the moment?

‘The short answer is yes, I do. First of all, when will the election be held? That would be very crucial from what I can see, the Taoiseach has three options – I think they could do the spectacular one and [hold it] on the same day as the local and European elections ,which would be quite extraordinary, but I could see the logic of it in one way, because it would just catch some of the opposition parties off-guard.

‘There is a problem that the government has with the number of TDs looking to go to Europe. And if they go to Europe, you could have three, four or five bye-elections and that would be very tricky for government – if they were to lose three or four of them, one after the other – which would be the likelihood, so that would mean an election this side of Christmas. Or to have one at the Budget time, or to go to the very last day which is March or whatever next year, what they will do is interesting. I’d say the June one has more merit than you might think at first.’

But can Fine Gael bring the votes in?

‘Absolutely, I mean the votes are there, and there is no question about that. It is an issue of vote management and that’s what it was the last day. I don’t believe it was the percentage of votes for Fine Gael. The last day there was an issue with vote management and candidate selection. I think if that can be improved on, certainly there is a possibility there of a seat being got back for Fine Gael.’

He thinks a June election could be a good election. ‘And they could say better the devil you know – you could have a winter election where people are just fed up and want to get rid of this crowd no matter what, and there will be a plague on all your houses!

‘There are lots of dynamics at play – a lot can be lost or won in the last 10 days when people make up their minds about how they’re going to vote in that time.’

But isn’t unseating even one of three strong TDs an uphill challenge now for the party?

‘If that was the case, we would never have change! The fact of the matter is that the toughest election you will ever fight is your second election. If you look back, the history books are littered with people who lost their seats in the second election, and obviously two of the candidates we are referring to in West Cork are going into their second election, so that is always a challenge.

‘And just about the national impact versus local – I always find this fascinating. Watch the percentage of vote that Fine Gael got in Cork South West. Cork North West was exactly the same in both elections – even though they had completely different candidates and different geographies, different histories about how long they were there.

‘You would be surprised about how the national does impact on the percentage of the vote and what you do with that percentage of the vote – that is what we got wrong in West Cork. ‘It is extraordinary to think that Cork South West did not elect a Sinn Féin candidate the last time, when they were electing people who are unheard of and had no name recognition. And if I remember right, some candidates were abroad on holidays during the campaign. But I would’ve thought that Paul Hayes was a great candidate and would’ve been very well liked and well-got, so these elections are funny animals. But they are not completely unpredictable, either.’

'It was such a buzz'

Does he miss politics now?

‘It is a question I get asked all the time. The truth is that I haven’t really left politics. My eldest son is in college doing politics and we talk politics all the time. I’m going out on Saturday morning, dropping leaflets for our local election candidate Noel O’Donovan in Clonakilty. I was watching Leaders Questions on Thursday of this week or whatever, and I call into the Dáil reasonably often, so I haven’t left politics. I am still very involved and interested, but full-time active politics? Do I miss that side of it? No, the truth is no, it was great. I did love every day of it. It was such a buzz, but it does become all-consuming and takes up every single aspect of your life.

‘It was great to recognise that in time, and get back home and take my kids to school. They are getting to a stage now where they don’t really need me as much, they are teenagers and starting to move on, but I’m glad I came back for those few years just to have that time with them and I have no desire to go back into full-time politics, but I have no regrets.’

With Jim’s son, studying politics – will we see another Daly on the ballot paper in another few years?

‘Not in the short term … but who knows?’ he grins.

Listen

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Are you right there, Michael, are you right?

Michael McCarthy is a former Labour party TD.

Michael McCarthy from Dunmanway is a former Labour party senator TD. He served in the Dáil from February 2011 until February 2016. He now director of Cloud Infrastructure Ireland, a divison of Ibec – the business and employers’ confederation.

DUNMANWAY man and former Labour party TD Michael McCarthy lost his seat in 2016, having been involved in politics from the age of about 23. He admits the result of the election took some time to get used to.

‘It felt quite strange, yes. I was elected to Cork County Council [in 1999] so I had gone in very young. By the time I was 39 it was all gone. It was a very unusual time, because I had been programmed, I suppose, to be in public life – it being a full-time career for 14 years at that stage – 17 years in its entirety – so you are constantly in that bubble politically.

‘Once you’re in that bubble, you are engrossed in that bubble and there aren’t literally enough hours or minutes in the day, so kind of a high octane political bubble, and all of a sudden – having all this time on your hands. So in my case, I got elected first to the Council. I was living at home, I wasn’t married, I had no children. By the time I had lost the seat in 2016, we had four children, married, you are paying a mortgage, you are doing what other people are doing, so you’ve got kind of reimagine your life.’

He admits that he had decided in advance, with Nollagh his wife, because the polls were ‘ominous’, that if he lost his seat, he would leave politics.

‘You’ve always got to go into an election and convince yourself and your team that you can win the seat. But you have to be realistic and I had decided well in advance of the election if it doesn’t work out, so be it, I'm going to draw the line, because at 39 you are young enough to reinvent yourself.

‘I particularly found the first few months very strange. I also had this idea that, like on a Friday, I should be in Dunmanway or a clinic, or Bantry, and all of a sudden there is no point because you are not in politics anymore. And then the invitations stop coming in to attend events. The phone stops ringing, so it’s a very, very strange peculiar feeling, and it took a while to mentally decongest from all of that.

‘But there is no doubt about it, once you mentally decongest, that genie is not going back into the bottle.’

Michael went from politics to working for the solar energy sector and is now with a body representing cloud-based technologies, so was technology something he was always interested in?

‘I had been appointed chairman of the joint committee on the environment in 2012 and the outgoing government tried to bring in a climate bill on a few occasions, but it didn’t feature because of the prevailing economic circumstances. But on the committee for a period of two years I conducted public consultations on what led to eventually our first climate act on the statute books which, by the way was November 2015 and the election was the following February, so it was the 11th hour. So during that time there was a lot of discussion about decarbonisation and climate carbon targets and about what we could do as a country, and a great effort was made by everybody to commit to that discussion.

‘I developed an interest in renewables in particular, and decarbonisation, so after the election I went to the Irish Solar Energy Association – a small trade association set up to advance the interest of those who wanted to develop rooftop and on a commercial scale. Solar PV is a way of decarbonisation, it’s a way of cleaning jobs, creating jobs, creating electricity and it was a natural step up, then, to Cloud Infrastructure Ireland.
‘The companies we represent have a big focus on renewable energy and decarbonisation. In many ways, the political career, at least the end of it, complemented the next journey in my career.’

'You literally don't have any time'

Having now worked on both sides of the fence, as it were, was there a lot more pressure on family life from being a politician?

‘You go from a point where you literally don’t have any time … it might be different in urban constituencies, I don’t think it is, but particularly in a rural constituency, or at least a constituency outside of Dublin. You are instantly recognised and we do live in a very open democracy. There are some very good people still in politics and that is really important and that interaction between constituents and politicians is important, but it is almost impossible to have a family life that is conducive to political life. And that is a significant issue and if you look for example, the announcements over the last six or 12 months, from some of our departing politicians … I am happy for them personally, but I think, tragically, some of them are in their late 30s, early 40s, and it’s not normal to do a career change – a profound career change.

‘But then I think the pandemic … because people were at home for such long periods of time – they re-evaluated what’s important in life – and family life is really, really important. I think some of the newer wave of politicians realise, to have all this time with your children and family, and I think there is an element of that weighing in their consideration.

‘Now there is a number of other issues, but the work /life balance … you just can’t get that in public life and that is something that is to be valued by those of us who have experienced it on both sides of that fence. I wouldn’t change my life now for diamonds and particularly in terms of what needs to be done.

‘If you have young children, if you want to go bring them to school, you want to have the energy and you can’t do anything if you’re in public life because you are constantly on the road. That [role] falls to the spouse and there is an unfairness in that. It is not a prescribed unfairness, it is just a consequence of political life, so the work/life balance is increasingly difficult for practitioners of politics.

‘For example, where someone would’ve been a TD for 20 or 30 years, nowadays, there is a higher turnover of people who are opting not to stand for political life again, but the work/life balance is a particular consideration.’

Many people who enter politics now and will in the future, are likely to have a few careers, does Michael think that is a positive for politics?

‘I think the mix is good but I think the importance of continuity of knowledge of the practitioners is also important. We do need to continue knowledge and experience because that is hugely important. The intake is always important, but that mix of experience is also crucially important. Ultimately, we do elections really well in this country … but we need good people to stand for election. And if there are issues around maintaining people in those positions – apart from the obvious where you go into a polling station and make a decision – then those issues need to be teased out. I think it is very difficult to find that balance.’

'Huge' inroads into renewable energy

Working with Cloud Infrastructure Ireland brings the controversy over the energy demands of big data centres firmly onto Michael’s plate, so how do we balance the pressure on the network with the importance of the jobs that they have brought to Ireland?

‘It’s an interesting question. And Mark Foley, the chief executive of Eirgrid, published – in conjunction with his board and organisation – a very good document a few years ago called Shaping Our Electricity Future. It looks at what we need to do, and we have the current updated climate action plan by government with a revised target of 80% of renewable electricity on the system by 2030.

‘We are making huge inroads in terms of renewable electricity because we have to decarbonise and every sector of the economy has to decarbonise. The issue traditionally with servers in all kinds of business parks and companies and businesses is they are all migrating into the cloud, because the government statement on data centres two years ago looked at the strategic role of data centres in the enterprise economy. It speaks about the twin transition of digitalisation and decarbonisation because you cannot decarbonise without digitalising and you can’t digitalise without data centres, so it is an inherently complementary debate.

‘Ultimately, the companies I represent, which are Google, AWS [Amazon] and Microsoft have been investing in Ireland for decades, they are continuing to invest in Ireland. These companies are here and many of them have their EMEA operations in Dublin and have come here for a number of reasons – the stable political environment, highly skilled workforce and the infrastructure that follows that.

‘In terms of that infrastructure, the debate has been somewhat lobsided about the increase in demand. Mark Foley has told us the increase in electricity demand is in line with a modern cutting edge, technological global digital European Union. It’s in the generation of electricity where we are really falling behind. By 2030 we are going to have, in my view, up to 80% of renewables in the system. We are going to have 5GW of offshore wind. We are going to have 8GW of solar PV. There is a lot of good stuff happening.

‘The difficulty is between now and then. That is where the issue with security supply comes in. The companies I represent have bought and committed to 1100 MW of renewable electricity on the system, and we want to work with government in order to ensure the other side of that balance, which is generation of renewable electricity which has a sense of urgency, because it is in all of our interests to ensure the lights stay on, and what is behind those lights carbon free.’

But how much of that will be contributed to by offshore wind, given Ireland is so far behind in the relevant infrastructure?

‘We are getting there. Once you are dealing with longer-term issues, [other items] fall outside of the electoral cycle. We have an election in Ireland, probably every two, or two-and-a-half years, between local, Europeans and generals, and sometimes the debate falls behind in terms of the election cycle. That is why the sense of urgency needed doesn’t get the sense of attention that it needs.

‘So, ultimately, we have the targets, we have the shaping of our electricity future from Eirgrid, and we have the political will. We are just three or four years behind. Some of the people involved in developing offshore will tell you that the regime, which is almost up and running, should really have happened two or three years ago. [There is] poor development, for example, on the eastern side of the seaboard between Belfast and Cork, that is not capable of accepting offshore wind unsure just yet, but we will get there. But we need to renew that sense of urgency.’

Is he confident we will ever get there?

‘I am really confident we will get there. Now it requires a sustained effort and a very strong political focus. If you look at the revised government plan, the climate action plan 2023 increased renewable ambition. We have the ambition, we have the strategies. It’s the planning nuts and bolts now that we need to deploy to ensure the landscape is sufficient to bring those renewables onto the system by 2030.

‘We are bound by climate law to do it and we have the resources to do it and is a very different Ireland now compared to maybe 10 years ago. We couldn’t really see beyond the economic calamity that had befallen us, so with all of those factors combined, I’m confident that we will do that and I share the philosophy and the ambition in Eirgrid shaping our electricity future.’

Labour and Social Democrats 'need to have meaningful discussions'

How does the former TD see Cork South West shaping up before the next election?

‘I think it will be really interesting. I think we are very lucky in Cork South West as we have three very fine capable representatives in Dáil Éireann our behalf – all bringing their own uniqueness to the road. I would’ve presumed when the Electoral Commission were revising boundaries that we might’ve been mixed up with Cork North West and have a five-seater and that would change fundamentally the landscape. But the way I see it at this point in time, no one would’ve predicted – at least I wouldn’t have – that Fine Gael would’ve lost a seat in West Cork in the last election. And I think in the interregnum, Senator Tim Lombard, who is now in his second term at Seanad Éireann, is working really hard, putting a lot of groundwork in the constituency, so I think there’ll be a hugely interesting contest for that last seat in Cork South West for the imminent general election.’

But who does Michael think is vulnerable there?

‘There are a number of factors. It will depend on the prevailing climate – I mean up to recent times there was a kind of an upward trajectory of Sinn Féin support. That seems to have waned a bit, so there has to be a number of considerations –prevailing political climate, geography is a huge issue, and if Tim Lombard is to win a seat for Fine Gael, it is anyone’s guess as to who might lose out.

‘I think Michael Collins is as safe as houses, assuming he is sitting on a quota, he has worked hard to build a quota, so it would be really interesting. Your guess is as good as mine at this point in time. I think ultimately I would put my money on a dogfight for that last seat, with Tim Lombard challenging very hard.

The 2020 general election was closely fought. McCarthy believes this time around will be no different.

‘I think another consideration will be – and this is entirely a matter for the Labour party, or Social Democrats, I am not part of the debate – but there is a recurring social commentary between the Social Democrats and the Labour party about a merger – and I think they are both very highly capable competent politicians.

‘If you look at the experience of government from 2011 to 2016, when I was there, the country had gone over the cliff and I am not playing a blame game. We had to introduce really difficult measures and myself and a number of other colleagues made decisions to support economically-difficult decisions politically that would get us out of that.

‘We lost our seats – so be it, that is democracy. We now have a political landscape and an economic landscape with a full employment economy, big budget surplus, and those are two really important levers for an outgoing government.

‘And I think in terms of the realignment, I think the Social Democrats and the Labour party need to have meaningful discussions. If you take the traditional Labour vote of eight, nine, 10% … so I think there is a co-ordinated discussion required by both party leaders – to talk strategically about the directions both of those parties are taking.

‘A lot of the discussion is reminiscent of, for example, the Democratic Left/Labour party discussion in the early 1990s where they just couldn’t do business, but then Democratic Left came under the Labour banner. So I think it is probably a factor as well that it might consolidate some of the Labour seats and Social Democrats seats.’

'Great to be gone from the system'

Unbeknownst to some, Michael is a talented impersonator of many people, including some of his former colleagues – has his departure from Leinster House left a big entertainment void?!

‘I think the important thing is, Siobhán, and particularly during the dark days of recession, humour is important. Not playing down the economic political challenges of the day, and I think I got into hot water in one particular occasion because of it, but let’s just say I did develop that ability to perfectly imitate a number of people.

‘The first citizen was one of them, a couple of notable journalists, and a couple of colleagues. But beyond that, we would have to have a different discussion when the microphone is off!

Impressions aside, does he miss politics?

‘I miss the collegiality. We do have a very good political system, we have some very good people still in politics and both the opposition benches and government and I do miss that. In my case, for 17 years, you were part of a workforce effectively, and it is a cliff – people go back into private industry, they do different things.

‘I don’t miss the rough and tumble and I still have a great interest in terms of political decisions that are made that impact me as a citizen, but I do miss the collegiality, because being elected to any body, the Council right up to the Áras … In my case I was selected to three bodies – both houses of the Oireachtas and the local authority. And it was an honour to be elected. Anybody and everybody who has the courage to put their name on a ballot paper really does deserve the respect and admiration.

‘It’s great to be part of the system, but it’s also great to be gone from the system!’

Listen

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Noel gives post office role the real stamp of approval

Former TD Noel Harrington works as a postmaster in Castletownbere. (Photo: Anne Marie Cronin)

Noel Harrington served as a TD, based in his native Castletownbere on the Beara peninsula, from 2011 to 2016, when he lost his seat. Before that he had been elected to Cork County Council for the Bantry area in from 1999-2011. Since leaving politics, Noel has returned to his role as local postmaster, a job he is passionate about, but he is also vocal about the recent changes to the postal services

CHATTING in the front room of his lovely home just outside Castletownbere, it’s not difficult to see why Noel Harrington is very comfortable back in his former job as postmaster in the fairly remote fishing town.

He lost his seat in 2016 having had a very good run in politics – initially at County Council level, starting in 1999. But what went wrong that final year?

‘Well the Fine Gael strategy was something we weren’t going to change. Myself and Jim were sitting TDs, and we were going to have two outgoing TDs fighting for their seats – they were never going to select one over the other, and we didn’t have the votes for two,’ he explained.

‘After a tumultuous five years in Leinster House, some people were still angry, we still hadn’t fully recovered from the financial crash, it was a lot of hard decisions that had to be taken, and one of us had to go. It was a battle, it wasn’t a strategy. It was just that we didn’t have enough votes.’

Was it a big shock to him at the time, given he polled a respectable 15% of the vote?

‘The interesting thing was my first preference percentage vote kind of held up reasonably well, but the problem was – as it is in most or nearly every election – the transfers are critical. We couldn’t get the transfers that we got in 2011. It’s the transfers which will tell the tale at the end of the day, and even though we pulled in first preferences, we just didn’t attract the transfers further down the counts.’

Was he massively disappointed that day?

‘I was, I mean you know you work hard and it is disappointing. This is a tremendous blow and, personally, it is a big blow as well. You kind of say, well, what did I do wrong? What did go wrong? What did I do? Could I have done more to do any better? But those are things that you reflect on later on, but on the day, you are kind of numb to it. You are in a daze and it takes a while to sink in.’

Did Noel ever think that he might just take a break and then go back to it?

‘Well we took a break, because we had to take a break! I have a young family, I was lucky and fortunate. There are many others who lost their seats and didn’t have, for example, another job, another position to go back to. I had. And I enjoy my work and when I went back, you know, you essentially regain your life and going back into politics … I love politics. I love the people, but there are a lot of elements of politics at the moment that I wouldn’t welcome on anybody.’

How does he feel about Beara not being very well represented in the Dáil now.

‘We never had representation until 2011. Well Ted O’Sullivan was a Fianna Fáil TD [in the 30s] and he would have based himself loosely around Beara, but I was living on the peninsula and I’m not sure if there was anybody ever elected living on the peninsula before. We had Senator Terry O’Sullivan in Allihies [in the 70s], and that was it. It’s very difficult – the peninsula is about the size of Co Louth and has a population loosely of about 5,000 people, and you have to travel a minimum of an hour before you can get to any base and that is what counts at the end of the day. I remember PJ Sheehan, God rest his soul, used to say “you need to be where the chimney pots are”. And that is the reality of it. It’s a numbers game.’

Post offices closed 'without a whimper'

There’s a lot of controversy about the post offices at the moment and many people are feeling that An Post are not too concerned about replacing retirees. What does Noel see as the future for our post offices

‘It is a difficult conundrum. I was lucky, as I said, I came back to the post office and I loved it. I love that work again, you are dealing with people, and it was a brilliant way to come back, in one respect, after losing a seat because you were back facing people again, because you had to do it very quickly and got over the whole thing. I’m a postmaster since ‘92 or ‘93 and in that time, I think, along the peninsula, we have lost 12 of our post offices.

‘It is a lot and many of them just closed without a whimper. And many of the people who had served 40, 50, 60 years running those offices and serving those communities, people have to be reminded that they were actually there now. And it’s very sad. They have been great servants to their communities and the parishes, only a few postpersons are left on the peninsula and the reality is difficult. The reality is for most people and for most areas it just isn’t worth it.’

Noel says they have to put in a capital expenditure to begin with and they will never see that back. ‘It’s the nature of the contract for 100 years and it is a policy that suits, in my opinion. It worked when everybody was posting letters and sending parcels, everybody was collecting their pension in the post office. The post offices were accommodating postpersons, which they are not anymore. There was a payment for that, which in many cases, kept the office viable.

‘In many areas now the post persons are consolidated into larger depots and sorting units in urban areas – those people came from the smaller post offices and those post offices lose the accommodation and payment. That is a keystone in the bridge of the whole thing. A lot of offices aren’t or won’t be viable, particularly the standalone post offices. And that is another trend you see as well, a lot of the post offices locating into supermarkets ,where the supermarket owner becomes the postmaster. And that is an admission, in my opinion, that you need something with the post office to make it work.’

Did they miss a trick by not becoming the digital hubs for the local communities?

‘It is fine to become a digital hub or whatever, but the trick is how does that pay for itself? And the other reality that people may not know is they have to wash their face, and An Post has to do the same thing – they cannot depend on government subsidies. They have to be commercially viable, like a lot of different semi-states and that is underpinning the decisions taken by the executives on the board.’

Beara's diverse population

Back to politics – how does Noel see the next election panning out in Cork South West and when might that be?

‘I would love to see Fine Gael seat returned, at least one. We have had two for two generations, you could argue. And to have none was a big shock, so we are hopeful, with the right strategy and with the right candidate or candidates – maybe we will run two – we might at least see one seat returned and that is my hope.

'And I think the votes are there to do that. But then you have the electorate which is a little more volatile. I think the independents seem to be gaining ground. I think there is a populism out there – that is kind of short term – and a populism that makes things volatile. You know the country has gone through a few issues between Covid and the Ukrainian crisis … Immigration … is an element in every town in every village and it is how people either embrace it or deal with it – either see the negatives or the positives in it, how that will dictate what candidates and what policies will come too.’

Castletown would’ve had a long history of a diverse population?

‘Centuries of it.’

So has Noel found any change in the feeling on the ground here?

‘No, no, we haven’t been impacted particularly by the influx of Ukrainian refugees as much. We have a few families who are working and have gotten employment here at the schools – they have kept classrooms open, I am sure.

‘But we have a diverse population, especially through the fishing industry. If you walk down the pier you will see a lot of fisherman from the Far East, from Eastern Europe, from North Africa, from West Africa, working on the local boats and that does not include our visiting fleet that have changed completely as well. Many of those boats will now have a lot of north African and East Africans working on those boats. And Philippines. So we are no strangers to it. I mean Beara is named after a Spanish princess, so there you go!

People make politics

It sounds like Noel may still miss politics.

‘I miss the people,’ he admits. ‘You’ve known so many people in Bantry and Skibbereen and all the different villages that you would’ve been involved in up to 2016. And you don’t see those people any more really.

‘You missed those people and you reflect on that from time to time. You might see one or two and then they might’ve passed away and you’d say oh God, I remember dealing with a particular person, and you get a bit sad about that. The people in politics – because you were working with them three or four days a week, and you met them every couple of days a week and you built a friendship and then … Politics is amazing, it’s stops the day you lose your seat and it’s no reflection on anybody else … that is it. You are kind of out. They’re busy, they have their lives to live. They have very busy political careers to keep going. Many of them are promoted, they may be ministers … but it is like falling off a cliff.

‘Now I have kept in contact with a few, but you do miss the people and the staff as well because you’re dealing with staff on a daily basis there as well.’

Is there a club for politicians or a WhatsApp group?

‘No, you see you lose touch as well for that. They may occasionally come down to West Cork and pop in and visit, but that is how it is.’

But you get your life back, at least?

‘So yes, you’re working 9 to 6 so after 6 o’clock, essentially your time is your own. That was never the case – you were kind of 24/7. And the funny thing was, you would be at home, and the phone was ringing and I was fine, you would have to deal with it. Your family would be parked for a while, and then you were at home and the phone is beside you and it is not ringing. And then you were saying, well, what’s the story? Why is my phone not ringing?

‘Then of course, living here, we are 250 miles from Dublin, so even to travel to get there on a Tuesday morning, some times you had to leave on a Monday night, if you had an early committee meeting on a Tuesday morning.

‘And if you were there till Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening, it is late Thursday night until you are home. Then on Friday and Saturday you have clinics. And then you have all the constituency stuff that comes around … public meetings, and people will obviously call for public meetings and engagements on the weekends because they know that’s when the deputies are at home.

‘So your weekends are completely taken up, social occasions, you kind of have to see if you can get to as many of those as you are invited to – funerals, whether you’re invited to them or not, you have to try and get to them, and be seen at as many of those … so the reality was you’re in Dublin for more than half the week and even when you’re at home, you’re never at home. You might be present but your head is somewhere entirely elsewhere.

‘That becomes very difficult and very stressful and a lot of families couldn’t take it. Just didn’t take it. Politics has wrecked families. And no different to maybe some other careers, but I think politics seems to be particularly hard on families.’

So that is really the silver lining in losing your seat – that you get your time back? ‘Absolutely. You are re-engaged – you are able, for example, to go down the town and have a drink and go for a meal – just have a meal and a drink or whatever, and you are not waiting for somebody to touch you on the shoulder for five or 10 minutes. And you don’t have to bring your notebook or your pen anymore!’

Winter election a no-go

When do you think the general election might be?

‘I think we could have a general election in September. I think the latest it can go is probably March next year. Leo already said he doesn’t want to campaign over the winter, and I know why. I’ve had a few of them and they are just relentless, they are grinding and miserable and you are miserable and people are equally miserable and it's dark and you are knocking on someone’s door at 5.30pm and they’re only just in the door from work. They’re putting kids to sleep … trying to feed kids, whatever … so there is a big difference between a winter and summer election in my view and that is not the only reason I think. There is never a good time or a bad time, there’s always different pros and cons about when they make the call and it remains to be seen, but my guess is September.’

Will you go to the count?

'I hope to. Obviously you still have a keen interest in the politics of it, but you like to meet the people and re-engage again with people.
Politics … it is an honour. I think I stood in seven elections including a Seanad election between local and other elections. I have lost a Council and a Dáil election, and a Seanad election, but I have won some and it’s a privilege to do that.

‘And you have to pinch yourself every so often and say, well, you were selected to do a job, go out there and do it. And equally, then, when you don’t get selected, you have to get over that. It’s a big blow, but you can get over it very quickly.’

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