Winds of change blow through County Hall

Desire for change was what motivated thousands of citizens throughout Meath to come out and cast their ballots in the local and European elections last Friday. And change the face of local politics they certainly did, with five Fianna Fail councillors losing their seats on Meath County Council in addition to the sole Green Party representative. Fianna Fail stronghold or not, Meath was not spared the chill winds generated by an angry electorate and its desire to punish those in Government whom it holds accountable and responsible for mismanaging the economy. While they acknowledge they were campaigning in the face of a gale-force wind, FF councillors all over the country paid the price for the Government"s deep unpopularity with humiliating defeats, especially in Dublin. That scale of wipeout was not evident to the same extent in Meath, regarded nationally as a traditional FF heartland, but, nonetheless, the new Meath County Council - when it meets for the first time later this month - will have one less FF representative from each of its five electoral areas of Navan, Trim, Kells, Dunshaughlin and Slane. The other Government party, the Greens, have also lost their sole Meath councillor in Tom Kelly, who failed to retain his seat in Slane. Indeed, the Greens, lacking the much greater mass of Fianna Fail to absorb the severe blows being rained down upon the Government, have felt far more pain for being part of an unpopular Government. From having upwards of a dozen councillors around the country, they have now only three left. With further FF losses also racked up in the town council elections in Meath, most notably Tommy Reilly in Navan, the beneficiaries have been Fine Gael, Labour and the independents. There were some outstanding personal performances, none more so than Independent Francis Deane in Navan, the popular local businessman who left Fine Gael to run a solo campaign, pulling in over 1,800 votes to top the poll in the Navan Electoral Area. Eoin Holmes for Labour also polled remarkably well - and hugely in excess of what Dominic Hannigan had managed in 2004 - as the swing to Labour across the country took effect. He topped the poll in the Slane Electoral Area and had the distinction of being the very first councillor elected to Meath County Council at 1.30am on Sunday morning. Fine Gael stormed home in Trim with Ray Butler emulating his feat of topping the poll in the local town council election, and poll-topper Catherine Yore came in just ahead of her FG colleagues Eugene Cassidy and John V Farrelly as FG completed a remarkable treble in Kells. The Dunshaughlin area belonged to Independent long-serving councillor Brian Fitzgerald who was elected on the first count. The winds of change are certainly blowing through County Hall in Navan, with a dozen new councillors lining up to take their seats - eight of them women. Many of these new faces are young councillors who will bring a new focus, fresh thinking and perhaps a new dynamism to the issues which need to be worked upon for the betterment of communities across Meath. For now, they can bask in the glory of their successes, but within weeks they will need to be able to gain a quick understanding of the issues and absorb a great deal of information about how the local authority works and, crucially, how they can influence change. They will have heard all the concerns of their constituents throughout the long canvass over the last few months, and they will have made many promises in the search for votes; now they will need to fulfil those promises to the very best of their abilities. Meath County Council is facing a numnber of serious challenges in these times of great economic uncertainty, with substantial budget cuts being implemented, cutbacks in services and a tottering local roads infrastructure. How best to get to grips with these challenges will be high on their agendas. Economic stimulation remains a key focus to not only keep jobs in Meath but also to attract inward investment. Development issues also continue to dog local residents, particularly in the parts of the county which have experienced rapid residential growth in the past decade. One of the star performers in this week"s election, Eoin Holmes, summed the situation up rather well when he said after his election: 'It is quite apparent that the place (east Meath) has been allowed to develop without any facilities for young or old. It is true that you can tell a society by how it treats its young and its old, and we have no facilities for any of these.' In five years" time, they must all have made a difference.