Voters who deserted Labour had forgotten its victory in bringing about the marriage equality referendum, Willie Penrose claimed, after saving his party’s speaking rights by winning it a seventh seat in the 32nd Dail.
The veteran Labour TD was elected yesterday morning in the redrawn four-seat constituency of Longford-Westmeath after a marathon count lasting almost a week. The party had faced losing its Dail platform after Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the equalities minister, lost his seat in Dublin Bay North on Tuesday.
Mr Penrose said that he “never gets euphoric” about success, but he knew winning his seat back was important for the party. Joan Burton, the Labour leader; Alan Kelly, the deputy leader; and Brendan Howlin, the public expenditure minister, had all visited the count centre over the past three days to support him.
“The Keenagh count centre had been the centre of the Labour universe from Tuesday on,” he added.
Yesterday’s results confirmed Labour’s slide from 37 seats to seven. It secured only 6.6 per cent of first-preference votes, a fall of 12.8 percentage points. Several leading TDs, including Kathleen Lynch; Kevin Humphreys; Alex White; John Lyons; and Ann Phelan, were among the casualties.
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“Our progressive social legislation was ignored. The results of the marriage equality referendum were quickly forgotten,” Mr Penrose said. “We will reorganise now. We’ve done our service for the country. In 2011 we could have sat on the sidelines in political cowardice, but I don’t think that’s what the people wanted. We put the country before ourselves.”
Mr Penrose criticised “ultra-left” parties who had campaigned heavily against Labour and called on them to go into government instead of remaining in opposition.
“We did our duty. It’s up to those parties now to step up to the plate, particularly those who had been offering instant whip solutions, with no way of paying for it other than these ephemeral statements about ‘taxing the rich’. There aren’t that many rich people in this country, and even if there were, capital is very mobile,” he said.
Mr Penrose said his party had anticipated more transfers from Fine Gael and added that Labour would be supporting Enda Kenny as taoiseach when the Dail reconvened next week.
“That’s our official position — we are supporting Mr Kenny as taoiseach and after that all bets are off, Labour will go into opposition,” he said.
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Mr Penrose defeated James Bannon, of Fine Gael, in one of the closest contests in the election.
The knockout blow was delivered at about 5.30am yesterday morning at St Dominic’s community centre in Keenagh, Co Longford, where the count had been dubbed the Siege of Keenagh by some of those who stuck with it to the bitter end.
Mr Penrose’s victory ensures that Labour’s leader has valuable time to question the taoiseach and tanaiste in the Dail, a precious bonus to help the party to maintain a profile after its electoral losses.
Mr Penrose, who took a phone call from Ms Burton at 6.15am, said that he was not interested in contesting the party leadership. Under new internal rules, the party leader and deputy leader automatically lose their positions six months after an unsuccessful election.
The Fine Gael TD Peter Burke took the other of the last two seats. Mr Bannon, the outgoing TD based in Longford, is considering a legal challenge after he was eliminated on the fourteenth count, six votes behind Mr Penrose.