Verona Murphy will not be contesting the General Election as a member of the Fine Gael Party, and in one of the worst kept secrets on the Wexford political scene, it is now confirmed that she has been removed from the election race by a meeting of the Fine Gael Executive Council.

Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, who is the party’s Director of Elections, visited Wexford over the weekend and met with Ms Murphy. The Minister refused to comment to the media, but local councillors were aware of the situation and the pending outcome.

In a statement this evening it read; “Fine Gael’s Executive Council has decided to de-select Verona Murphy as a candidate for the Wexford constituency for the next General Election.” Fine Gael confirmed that Ministers Michael D’Arcy and Paul Kehoe are the selected candidates for the Wexford constituency. 

Last April, Ms Murphy was named as a General Election candidate for Fine Gael in Wexford alongside sitting Ministers Kehoe and D’Arcy. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar endorsed her campaign with vigour and travelled to Wexford where he opened her Wexford town constituency office on the Quay.

The Taoiseach’s confidence in the head of the Road Haulage Association has since been totally obliterated and national media is tonight quoting Leo Varadkar as saying that the Verona Murphy controversy has caused “reputational damage” to Fine Gael.

Ahead of last month’s by-election, she became embroiled in national controversy after comments about migrants ahead of the by-election, where she finished in third place behind local Cllrs Malcolm Byrne, who won the seat vacated by MEP Mick Wallace and the Labour Party’s Mayor of Wexford, Cllr George Lawlor.

At the Count Centre in St Joseph’s Community Centre, Wexford, Ms Murphy apologised for any comments that may have caused offence, thanked her supporters, and set her sights on the General Election, however, the rumours were almost instant and it has come as no surprise that Fine Gael would revise its pre-election strategy and Ms Murphy would not be in its future plans.

Left out in the cold, will Verona Murphy still line up in the General Election as an Independent candidate? 9,543 first preferences in the single seat by-election (and only a third of the electorate bothered to vote) wouldn’t be a bad start in a five-seater General Election – if it could be repeated – and it would certainly add to the “reputational damage” to the Taoiseach’s party. Wexford politics is going to be very interesting in the first half of 2020!