FIANNA Fail took Mr Jackie Healy Rae for granted and paid the price, as it saw the colourful Independent take its second seat in South Kerry.
The post election inquest locally and at party headquarters will focus on how the South Kerry strategy was so badly misread. Attempts by Mr Healy Rae to join the ticket with the outgoing TD and party spokesman on justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, and Mr Brian O'Leary, son of the retiring TD, Mr John O'Leary, were rebuffed, and so be decided to go it alone, ending up by taking Mr O'Leary's seat.
After a lifetime in the party, and being a national figure within its organisation, he was deeply hurt when he was refused a nomination. He declared that Fianna Fail had left him rather than he leaving it.
Shouldered high by his cheering supporters at the count centre in Killarney on Saturday night, it was with no small measure of satisfaction that be declared, in a reference to his onetime colleagues: "We have them." Early yesterday morning he addressed several hundred ecstatic supporters in Killarney town centre. They had waited for him in the rain, and he emerged Popelike at the window of the hotel, where the celebrations were in full swing, to promise to work until he dropped for the people of South Kerry.
Mr Healy Rae is no local maverick, breaking party ranks out of pique. He is a tough, intelligent and highly skilled grassroots operator, with a detailed grasp of the nuances of rural politics. He learned his organisational skills while working with the late Neil Blaney, Fianna Fail's legendary by election director of elections in the 1960s.
This was the era of the torch light processions, big rallies and the intensive canvassing that covered every house, and fleets of cars to take voters to the polling stations. Mr HealyRae was part of the team which secured, under Mr Blaney's direction, the bitterly fought South Kerry by election for John O'Leary in 1966, Gerry Collins's election in Limerick West, and Des O'Malley's victory in Limerick East.
Over the years, Mr HealyRae continued to serve the party as the South Kerry director of elections, a critical cog in a well oiled machine that delivered two seats. He consolidated his own electoral base when he was elected to Kerry County Council in 1974.
When Mr O'Leary retired, he believed his hour had come, but few within Fianna Fail expected him to go it alone when he failed to secure a nomination. They had not reckoned with Mr Healy Rae's determination. He opened a campaign headquarters in Killarney sections of the Fianna Fail organisation came to his support, and he was backed by others with no political affiliation. Despite being in his 60s albeit with the enthusiasm of a 20 year old - he attracted young voters who were disillusioned with the traditional party system.
He is a wealthy man, a publican and businessman in Kilgarvan. Some local estimates put the cost of his campaign at £30,000. He revived the after Mass speeches, his flamboyant style and powerful oratory attracting the kind of crowds that few other politicians could. Mr Bertie Ahern, on a visit to South Kerry to boost the party's flagging fortunes, noted ruefully the huge volume of national publicity that Mr HealyRae was attracting.
A week before polling day, an opinion poll in The Kerryman gave an indication of the upset that was looming, when it predicted that Fianna Fail would lose its second seat to an Independent, although the focus at the time was more on Mr Breandan Mac Gearailt, from the west Kerry gaeltacht, who had also broken with the party to run.
As the celebrations continued in Killarney, Kilgarvan and elsewhere throughout his sprawling constituency, Mr HealyRae made it clear that his support in a hung Dail would come at a price.
"Fianna Fail can come looking for my support on their knees, and they will give me what I am looking for before I will toe the line with them," he declared. "Before I will talk about backing anybody to be Taoiseach, I want him to say what he will do for the people of South Kerry who elected me with a massive vote." Mr HealyRae, with his booming voice, distinctive hat and colourful shirts and ties, will now become a familiar figure in the Dail, sitting on the Independent benches next to Mr Harry Blaney, brother of his old political mentor.
At the start of the campaign, he warned Fianna Fail that it would yet dance to his music, believing that it needed him more than than be needed the party. He might well be proved right. Fianna Fail will take him for granted again at its peril.
