Fine Gael will run three candidates for the Waterford constituency in the next General Election
Last night, the Fine Gael national executive announced that councillors Damien Geoghegan and John Cummins will contest the election alongside Senator Paudie Coffey who had been previously selected
The party's only outgoing TD in Waterford, John Deasy, announced recently that he would not be running again, and Fine Gael will be aiming to hold onto his seat and add a second at the general election.
Senator Coffey says he wasn't aware that his party planned to add two additional names:
"I wasn't (aware) until last night but to be fair, I did know that both Damien and John had indicated that they wanted to be candidates in the next General Election. I want to congratulate both of them because they're two very good candidates. And in fairness, both of them went before the Fine Gael convention last year and that was a convention where the Fine Gael membership in Waterford selected myself to contest the election on behalf of the party. And it was decided at that time that there would be additional candidates added to the ticket.
"It's certainly going to be very challenging but all three of us will certainly do our best to maximise the Fine Gael vote right across the city and county of Waterford. Those that made the decision were the Fine Gael National Executive and I presume they were looking at the local elections where Fine Gael had a good vote in Waterford. They probably want to build on that; the aim here is to at least win one seat in Waterford and to challenge for a second."
