LAOIS ELECTION UPDATE: The ‘A’ Team - down but not out
Independent cllrs James Kelly, Aisling Moran (election candidate), Tommy Mulligan and Ben Brennan collectively known as the 'A' Team.
THREE local councillors who rallied behind Independent general election candidate in Laois Aisling Moran and called themselves the ‘A’ team said they were disappointed in the numbers of people who had promised to give their candidate a vote.
Independent cllrs Ben Brennan, James Kelly and Tommy Mulligan had weighed in and gave cllr Moran their full support during her campaign.
Speaking at the count centre in Portlaoise on Saturday cllr Brennan said: “We ran a hard campaign and thought we had done enough for Aisling to come in fourth position on the first count. We’re very disappointed. A lot of people told us that they were voting for Aisling, but didn’t vote for her. I thought if people were genuine, they tell you yes or no, if they were going to vote for you or not.
“But we got some great positive reaction on the doorsteps. I myself had expected she’s poll about 4,500 first preference votes. It appears the votes just weren’t out there for us. We knew it was going to be a challenge but we faced up to it.”
Cllr Brennan said: “It’s not as though Aisling is going to go away. She’s still a councillor and she won’t stop working for the people. She’s a hard worker and people know that. She has a good foundation laid for the next time.”
“We thought that among us, the four councillors, with the bones of 6,000 votes in the June local elections, she’d do better than she did. but she only got a third of that. We’ll have to sit down and recess the outcome and we’ll come again,” said cllr Brennan.
