Colleagues sabotaged my campaign, claims defeated FF candidate
A defeated Fianna Fáil election candidate who narrowly failed to take a seat in the Taoiseach’s constituency tonight accused party colleagues of sabotaging her campaign.
Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter of outgoing TD Dermot Fitzpatrick, contested the four-seat Dublin Central along with Mr Ahern and his trusted friend Cyprian Brady.
Even though she pulled in more than 1,700 first preference votes, she lost out to Mr Brady who was elected on the eighth count despite only polling 939 first preference votes.
In an RTÉ documentary, the disgruntled councillor accused the party of undermining her by telling householders to give their preferences to the Taoiseach and his constituency worker Mr Brady when voting.
But Ms Fitzpatrick admitted she had already asked voters in the Taoiseach’s heartland to give her their No.1.
“I never thought they [Fianna Fáil] were the Legion of Mary,” she said.
“I never thought they’d do me any favours. I thought my insurance policy was that they needed the second seat.
“So I didn’t think they’d go out to completely undermine me and shaft me.”
On the night before polling day, Ms Fitzpatrick distributed leaflets to households asking people to vote for her as their first preference.
But when the Taoiseach’s campaign team heard about her postal sweep, they launched a counter attack and printed 30,000 letters asking voters to put Mr Ahern number one, and Mr Brady number two.
The letters were distributed in a three-hour blitz to every home in the constituency from 4am on polling day.
Mr Ahern’s election agent Chris Wall showed little remorse for the early morning letter drop.
“I was out canvassing the night before the election when I had a phone call from home to say a card seeking a number one vote in this area for a particular candidate arrived through my letter box,” Mr Wall said.
“She [Mary Fitzpatrick] was asked not to do this sort of thing.
“Having then done it, she therefore effectively set in train a motion she wasn’t going to be able to stop.”
Ms Fitzpatrick blamed the Taoiseach’s postal strategy for her failure to get elected.
“They did it because they wanted to hammer me,” she said.
“He [Cyprian Brady] got 900 votes after 20 years supposedly of loyal service working the constituency, and all he could deliver was 900 first preference votes.”
The documentary, ’Patricia, Mary and Mary-Lou Too’, looks at the battle between the three female Dublin Central candidates – the Green’s Patricia McKenna, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald and Fianna Fáil’s Mary Fitzpatrick – none of whom were elected.
It will be aired on RTÉ Radio One tonight.
