The difficulty in finding a replacement is likely to open up the field in Ireland East, writes Noel Whelan
IT HAS been a good week for Fianna Fáil MEP Liam Aylward. On Wednesday he was in Paris to receive an honour from the French government in recognition of his work on agriculture issues in the European Parliament.
He may have been even happier to hear the news from home that Fine Gael's Avril Doyle will not be contesting next June's European elections. Along with Mairéad McGuinness, they currently share the three-seat Ireland East constituency, which comprises most of Leinster.
Even before Doyle's announcement Aylward might have felt comfortable about his re-election prospects, but in these times no Fianna Fáil incumbent can take his seat for granted.
Doyle has had an eventful 35-year political career. As a member of Wexford County Council she won a Dáil seat on her first attempt in 1982. She then lost it, won it back, lost it again and failed in a further effort to win it back. In the late 1980s a Magill magazine cover story billed her as potentially Ireland's first female taoiseach. In the late 1990s she was almost Fine Gael's contender in a presidential election.
However, such were the vagaries of her own and her party's political fortunes that the highest domestic office in which she had opportunity to serve was a junior ministry.
Doyle was first elected to the European parliament in 1999, helped substantially by a strong wind of cross-party support from Wexford. Those of us who had occasion to tally votes in that year's local elections marvelled at how Avril polled almost three- quarters of the European vote in polling stations in the county where Fianna Fáil councillors dominated the local count.
Her toughest battle for political survival was in 2004, but such was the creative tension generated by her fight to hold her seat against Mairéad McGuinness that they both won.
With polls currently showing support levels for Fine Gael substantially up on where they were before the 2004 election, the party had every reason to be confident of holding two seats in Ireland East, provided they ran the same two-woman ticket. Doyle's retirement transforms the situation.
Few inside or outside her party would begrudge Doyle the opportunity she has taken for a change, and maybe even a rest, but her decision means that although Fine Gael's national vote share is likely to increase significantly in the European elections, the party could lose one of its five seats.
Fine Gael strategists were privately aware of Doyle's intentions for some weeks and have been sounding out possible replacements without, it appears, much success. One obvious replacement would have been Alan Dukes, who actually had his first electoral outing as a candidate in Leinster for the European parliament in 1979.
Now, as a nationally known figure, someone with clear Europhile credentials and with a political base at the heart of the constituency in Kildare, he ticks many of the boxes.
Dukes, however, seems to be enjoying life after politics and, while he chairs a policy commission for the Fine Gael, it seems he doesn't want to return to full-time politics - at least not in the European parliament.
Former minister Ivan Yates is another potential candidate who ticks many boxes. Like Avril, he starts with a strong Wexford base and, like Dukes, he is a former minister for agriculture and also enjoys a national media profile.
Yates also seems happy with his post-political reincarnation, however. After Doyle's announcement I asked him what odds he would give on himself replacing her in Strasbourg. He quickly texted back 1,000,000/1.
McGuinness should bet a euro with him to make sure he doesn't change his mind.
It is also hard to identify a winning running-mate for McGuinness among Fine Gael's sitting Dáil deputies in Leinster.
Newer deputies such as Paul Kehoe and Damien English are unlikely to be interested. More established deputies such as Billy Timmins and Bernard Durkan wouldn't have the necessary traction outside their own Dáil constituencies. Fergus O'Dowd is on McGuinness's doorstep.
Phil Hogan is the party's director of elections for Ireland East but, even if he were to do a Dick Cheney and run himself, he would be hampered by sharing a Kilkenny base with Aylward.
By process of elimination, the mantle is likely to fall to one of the party's Senators and attention is currently focused on former Wexford independent Dáil deputy Liam Twomey, who switched to Fine Gael in 2004.
Twomey is an amiable and able doctor and politician, but it would take one hell of a campaign in the short time available for him to match Doyle's performance. A second Fine Gael seat is not impossible but seems, at least at this remove, unlikely.
Fine Gael had 1.6 quotas in East in 2004; Fianna Fáil had barely one quota, while the Labour Party had just over half a quota. Sinn Féin and the Greens between them had another half quota. The Labour Party has already selected Nessa Childers, daughter of the late president and a former Green Party councillor in Dún Laoghaire.
At this stage it is also difficult to see how, as a relative unknown, she could poll higher then Peter Cassells, who failed to win a seat for Labour in 2004.
However, now that the third seat is vacant anything is possible. There is even room for an anti-establishment Independent or a Libertas-type candidate to emerge.