Election 2016: John O’Mahony faces tough test in Galway

The redrafting of the boundary in Galway West has led to a sort of homecoming for John O'Mahony.

The football revolution he spearheaded in 1998, which brought back an All-Ireland title, is still recent enough to guarantee that he remains a household name and face across great swathes of maroon country.

“Of course, not everyone who knows you necessarily votes for you,” he says with a grin as we set off on a soaked afternoon on a trail down one of the residential enclaves off the N17.

The road is narrow with expansive views of the plains and there is a distant thrum of traffic.

This is at once the heart of the country and the edge of the city. Many people are at work and the houses have that rushed-out-the-door first thing feel about them.

Some dogs bark and many of the houses have electric gates which remain shut. O’Mahony is fastidious in leaving his election literature wherever the bell-rings go unanswered.

“I’d hate to miss any house,” he says repeatedly.

Every so often, people materialise. Patience has always been O’Mahony’s most appreciable characteristic and he is never in any rush when he is chatting.

Many of the issues are local. “This road becomes a rat run every morning,” one lady tells him. The surface is all cut up from the rush of commuters looking for short cuts on the daily scramble in to the city.

Lighting is another issue. “That bend’s a bastard when it’s dark,” says a man as we stand at the front his house looking up at a blind turn.

National concerns

Other people have more national concerns. A car pulls up in a drive just as O’Mahony has dropped off his leaflets.

The driver is a mother whose 11-year-old has spina bifida. Her younger child has Type A diabetes.

In addition, she spent several years caring for her mother, an amputee. So she has jumped through the HSE hoops countless times.

“It’s easier for me just to drive to Dublin to get the treatment I need than to go to Galway,” she explains to O’Mahony.

She isn’t delivering a diatribe. In fact, she isn’t even angry. Instead, she just talks to him about the day-to-day ways in which the HSE has failed to meet her needs.

She has a clear idea of what she wants changed. “I’d like to see a more streamlined service and one where there is accountability.”

She says that when she visits University Hospital Galway, she has the sense of a system creaking under the weight of demands and that the staff are just “trying to cope and go home”.

O'Mahony listens to this and is sympathetic and explains what Fine Gael wants to do over the course of the next administration.

He tells her that there is no point in his making empty promises and she accepts that.

On another porch, he takes notes as a man explains how the recent flooding has been a nightmare for them, sending a small river of water coursing through their property and forcing him to sandbag the front door.

You can see the silt and traces in the drive.

Further down, Caroline — she prefers not to give her surname – is keen to talk about the USC. She doesn’t want it abolished.

She is happy to pay it as long as the money is used for adequate resources.

Her 10-year-old boy has severe dyslexia. If she could, she would quit work so she could be there for him more often.

The staff at the local school in Bawnmore have been wonderful but the family has found it difficult to obtain an occupational therapist for him, she says.

Instead, they contributed €6,000 to have him registered with a children’s development centre, which has been a godsend.

But she feels as if her child has had zero assistance from the state. O’Mahony takes her details and asks her to email him everything she has just outlined.

O’Mahony’s political life began because he was approached to run for election. He didn’t go courting it.

He hopes he has developed a reputation for solid, dedicated work. The concept of politician-as-brand is not something he has ever traded on.

“I’m very comfortable in doing the job without the headlines,” he says.

The new constituency brings O'Mahony into the city and its satellite towns: he is hearing a lot about urban concerns rather than the rural issues of his former Mayo base.

The traditional Galway football strongholds – Tuam, Dunmore – are not in his electoral parish.

Even when people recognise him, he has found that one of his key messages has been explaining the new constituency boundaries to voters.

Crowded constituency

His previous election successes in Mayo were hard won. He delivered the third seat in 2007 and had to battle for a fourth Fine Gael seat the last time around.

With Mayo now reduced to four seats, repeating that feat would be impossible.

This time, he is on a ticket with outgoing TD Seán Kyne and Senator Hildegarde Naughton in a crowded, noisy five-seat constituency in which, the belief is, Fine Gael will do well to win two seats.

Nothing will come easily and everyone is campaigning in the dark. Because of that, his previous life as a folk hero in Galway football can’t hurt.

“Well, I’m presenting myself as a sitting TD,” O’Mahony says. “The people will decide if it’s a factor or not.”