Fianna Fail was never going to win the Tipperary South by-election, the Taoiseach said yesterday. Asked for his reaction to the poor performance of his party's candidate, Mr Michael Maguire, Mr Ahern said it was always disappointing to lose. "We weren't going to win this by-election anyway. Let me be quite frank about this."
Mr Maguire increased the party's vote from last year by 3.8 per cent to 26.51 per cent, but this was still 10 per cent below the 1997 general election performance. The seat was won by the Fine Gael candidate, Mr Tom Hayes. The Taoiseach pointed out that this had been a Fine Gael seat with the by-election caused by the death last year of Ms Theresa Ahearn. "Theresa Ahearn was a much-loved and respected member of the Dail," he said. "There is no doubt about it, the people wanted to give that seat back to her party. I think Seantor Tom Hayes is a good candidate." He praised the Fianna Fail director of elections, Mr Brian Lenihan, and Mr Maguire for the effort they had put into the campaign. Mr Maguire had done his very best, said Mr Ahern. "I think Brian Lenihan and Michael Maguire ran an excellent campaign. We were far happier with our campaign this time. I think we did a good job.
"Of course, I would have loved to turn around the trend of governments losing by-elections for the last 20 years. That wasn't to be. It's not easy to win a by-election." Asked about possible lessons for his party, Mr Ahern said: "There are lessons for Fianna Fail in every by-election. We look very carefully at election reports and try to deal with things as best we can."