New look for Donegal County Council

Donegal County Council meets today in Lifford but there will be three notable absentees following the election to the Dáil at the weekend of councillors Thomas Pringle, Padraig MacLochlainn and Charlie McConalogue.

As the county’s three new TDs prepare to take their seats in the 31^st Dáil, speculation will now turn to who their replacements will be in the council chamber in Lifford – and there’s might not be the only seats to fill.

There were some suggestions at Saturday’s count that Labour’s Jimmy Harte will be encouraged to seek a Senate seat following his strong showing in Donegal North East, with some speculation that Labour could seek some of the Taoiseach’s Senate nominations as part of any coalition deal.

Whether Enda Kenny would like to grant a nominated seat to a candidate who left Fine Gael in a high-profile split though remains to be seen and it is more likely that he would reward long-serving councillor Bernard McGuinness if a Senate nomination were to come to Donegal.

Of course it remains a possibility that councillor Harte could seek election to the Senate and councillor McGuinness could still receive a nominated post – leaving two more seats to fill on the council.

It will be interesting as well to see who the parties choose to fill the vacant seats. Fianna Fáil’s Paul Canning was pipped at the end in the last local elections in Inishowen when Labour’s Martin Farren – but he is based in Newtowncunningham in South Inishowen and Charlie McConalogue is based in the north of the peninsula.

Sinn Féin could also choose to nominate Padraig MacLochlainn’s running-mate from the last election – Sean Ruddy – but may also look to former Buncrana Town councillor Daren Lalor or former Buncrana candidate Ciaran McGuinness. And of course they could bring two new faces to politics in Donegal by choosing different people for MacLochlainn's seats on Donegal County Council and Buncrana Town Council.

Padraig MacLochlainn celebrating with supporters
 at the count in Letterkenny on Saturday.
Speculation will now turn to who gets his seats on
Donegal Town Council and Buncrana Town Council.

Independent Thomas Pringle has already nominated his director of elections, John Campbell to take his place on the council, but with the possibility of as many as five seats to fill, some attention will surely focus on whether seats of democratically elected candidates should be filled by co-option instead of election.

Meanwhile there is every possibility that there will be more Donegal candidates still in election races in the weeks ahead with Brian O’Domhnaill most likely to seek re-election to the Senate.

The question remains though if he’ll be joined in a Senate race by Mary Coughlan or former Senator Cecilia Keaveney.