Three in the race for Fine Gael in Laois elections
Cllr Willie Aird pictured with his wife Anne Maria, after topping the poll in Portloise at the June 2024 local election. Photo: Alf Harvey
Three candidates are in the running as Fine Gael moves into general election mode in Laois, with the party selection convention looming on Thursday 5 September.
Poll-topping sitting councillors Willie Aird and Conor Bergin and Mountmellick Development Association (MDA) manager Paddy Buggy have been nominated to contest the upcoming convention.
Nominations closed on 16 August and it is expected that two of the trio will be selected at the convention in the Killeshin Hotel, Portlaoise, as the party prepares for the next general election campaign.
Whatever the outcome, it will be the first time since 1943 that the Flanagan name will not appear on a ballot paper, with the retirement of long-serving TD Charlie Flanagan who took over the mantle from his father Oliver J. in 1987.
It has been a long wait for a chance to run for the Dáil for consistent poll-topper cllr Aird from Portlaoise, who was only 19 when he was first elected as a town councillor in 1979 and has been returned in every local election ever since.
It will be a first convention bid for cllr Bergin, who topped the poll in the Borris-in-Ossory/Mountmellick area last June with 1,606 first preferences, the highest of the county’s three LEAs.
Meanwhile, high profile business and community man Paddy Buggy narrowly missed out on a council seat in Borris-in-Ossory/Mountmellick, despite gaining over 1,100 first preferences in a crowded field.
Laois will be a three-seat constituency in the next general election, which many predict will be called before the end of this year and must be held no later than March 2025.
