Hackett concedes defeat

Cllr Mark Hackett has admitted that he will not retain his seat on Offaly County Council and has admitted he is “deeply disappointed” to have garnered just 2.7% of the vote with 96% of boxes in the Edenderry Electoral Area tallied.

Speaking at the Offaly count centre in St. Brendan's Community School in Birr at lunchtime, Cllr Hackett said “I can see I am gone already, I have no chance,” and he added that the collapse of the Green vote locally had come “like a bolt from the blue” as he had been given no indication of the Green backlash on his canvass.

Describing himself as “an accidental politician” due to the fact that he was co-opted onto Offaly County Council in the wake of the appointment of his wife, Pippa, as a Minister for State, Cllr Hackett admitted that this is “the end of the road” for him on the local political scene. “I said I would give it my best shot, and I believe I did, but I would never do it again,” he said.

He said a number of factors went against him, including the public perception of Green Party leader, Eamonn Ryan. “People blamed us for the end of turf cutting, and it was also said that the Greens would end up making children walk to school and that's not the case at all,” said Cllr Hackett.

“I would say that out of every 100 doors I called to, I would only have got an anti-Green sentiment at one of them, and yet I only managed to get one or two votes in a lot of boxes where I might have expected to get 10 votes, which would have kept me in the race.”

Having put his farm “on the back burner” for the past five years, Mark Hackett says he is looking forward to being back on the farm next week. “There are gates that need hanging and loads of other jobs to be done, so I'll be looking forward to being a full-time farmer again.

He is also looking forward to getting fit again. As an avid runner, he says he has not put on a pair of running shoes “for at least six months.”

When asked what he would attribute to his poor showing in the polls, he said the Green message “isn't clear enough” and pointed out that “if you are denying you are losing” and the Green party has spent a lot of time denying many of the “misconceptions” that have been put out there, both locally and nationally.

He said he had been “a very strong supporter” of the many climate action policies implemented by Offaly County Council and would have loved to have retained his council seat to see many other policies which are in the pipeline being implemented.

“The Green agenda is going to be very far down the priority list on Offaly County Council now as it looks like we are reverting to the big parties and a couple of Independents” he said.

“I am very disappointed, but nobody died,” Cllr Hackett said, adding that his wife, Pippa, is also disappointed. “We haven't had a chance to discuss it much yet, but of course she is deeply disappointed,” he said.

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