The Dail hinges on H-Block

The 120 supporters of H-Blocks groups in counties Cavan and Monaghan who gathered in Clones on 30 September did not fit most people's image of those who make or break governments. They were roughhhewn dairy farmers, red-faced co-op workers, a couple of publicans, the odd teacher, some ex-prisoners. They were the hard core of the H-Block activists whose campaign last June outtpaced that of the major parties and secured hunger striker Kieran Doherty's election to the Dail. By Brian Trench

Having sought three months ago to dismiss Doherty's vote as "emotional", Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are now obliged to watch the sequel to that Clones 'meeting closely. With the two parties only a few percentage points apart in the constituency, with a history of oscillating majorities between them, and with Coalition and Opposition only two seats apart in the Dail, the short-term future of the government could hang largely on the H-Block campaign's ability to repeat and improve on the June performance.

The party managers at national level reassure themselves that it cannot be done. The hunger strike has lost in intensity, the bid to "save a man's life" by voting for him has patently failed, the H-Blocks campaign is openly divided about strategy.

But even if the 9,200 first preeferences for Doherty cannot be matched, the H-Blocks vote, they have to acknowledge, could still decide the outcome. And nobody knows with any' accuracy which party would gain most from the second preferences - if any - of an H-Blocks candidate.

Right, some of the supporters who helped elect Kieran Doherty TD in June. Left, at the conference to select a candidate for the byyelection - Charlie Boylan, Sinn Fein Councillor, Caoimhghin o Caolain, National HHBlock/Armagh Commmittee, Brian McKeown, Kieran Doherty's director of elections and Jim Gibney, National H-Block/Armagh Committee

Kieran Doherty's No. 2s were never seen, but all the evidence puts in doubt the conventional wisdom that the H-Blocks vote was essentially a diverted Fianna Fail vote.

A lot depends on the campaign and the candidate they put up, says John Wilson, whose own vote in his home area was substantially affected by the late intervention of the hunger striker. But the Clones meeting, while demonnstrating that the organisation is intact, provided only minimal clues. And even those were hedged around with qualiifications. "We can only take a decision in the light of circumstances at this time", said meeting chairman Kevin Keelan, leaving it open for the prisoners and the National H-Blocksj Armagh Committee to reject their recommmendation.

A Sinn Fein meeting of the preevious week had decided, by a small margin, to press for a prisoner candiidate. With the habitual moral blackkmail ("anything else would be betrayal of the prisoners") 'and "some political rationality ("a prisoner would have the strongest unifying effect"), they steered that proposal through the Clones meeting. The opposition within Sinn Fein - including that of some councillors in the constituency - remained silent.

The alternative proposals from independents for a political activist as candidate commanded little support.

In spite of recent suggestions Àencouraged by Ruairi 0 Bradaigh's intimation that the Provisionals might ask Paddy Agnew to resign his Louth seat - that Sinn Fein might prefer to leave the Cavan-Monaghan seat to Fianna Fail, the proposal to put up a candidate was supported unanimously.

However, with repeated reminders from Kevin Keelan that the decision was "not binding" and a reminder from the floor - from Leitrim counncillor John Joe McGirl - that the decisions on election strategy taken at last month's national conference in Dundalk were at least ambiguous, the H-Blocks campaign has to some extent left its options open.

Fianna Fail appears to have little choice in the matter of its candiidate. And the party exudes no great confidence in its ability to make the campaign into a decisive test of government popularity, with the prosspect of an early general election if they win. Jimmy Leonard, who was unseated by Kieran Doherty and has since been elected to the Seanad, comes to the selection convention at Cootehill on 9 October with appaarently unassailable credentials. But Fianna Failers in the constituency recall that Leonard antagonised HHBlocks activists unnecessarily and that Charles Haughey was visibly unenthuusiastic about him during the general election campaign.

The former TD's stance on the HHBlocks and his location near the largest Protestant enclaves in County Monaghan might be thought to give the party some chance of winning votes in that sector. But Garret FitzzGerald's appointment to the Seanad of Councillor Robert Fausset is likely to have cemented Fine Gael's stronger position in the previously volatile Prootestant part of the electorate.

Fausset's vote in the general elecction - 6,500 first preferences - is almost exactly equivalent to the Protestant vote. Between that ten per cent and the possible ten per cent Hplus which the H:Blocks candidate can command, Fine Gael faces the most difficult of the selection tasks.

Patrick Macklin has no doubt which is the stronger pole. The brash twentyyfive-year-old solictor from Monaghan insists that, to be a winner, the party's candidate must make it clear that he

considers the British presence in Norrthern Ireland to be a fundamental obstacle to progress. "But I would need to consult on how open that would be", says the pretender to a seat his grandfather prepared for James Dillon and his father held for some years.

With only a year's experience in the constituency organisation, Macklin was sixth choice at the election connvention for the general election; when Fine Gael nominated five candidates. His youth might be in his favour, given the predominantly youthful character of the H-Blocks vote and the record of four of the last five elections to the Dail - all won by candidates in their mid-twenties. His super-self-confidence arouses mistrust.

While Fausset apparently only wishes that all the attention on the constituency was over, and several of the party's other councillors are either inconveniently located or insuffiiciently known, Fine Gael have been casting around more widely. Suggesstions that Austin Currie might be their choice reflect the dilemma more than a possible way out. Garret FitzGerald's umprompted, but carefully calculated, comments on the Constitution add to the difficulties.

All of this must reinforce the HHBlocks campaign's sense of being at the centre of the political stage. "We can mount the same kind of campaign (as last June) to shake Leinster House to its foundations", says Brian McKeown, Kieran Doherty's director of elections. For the first time they have weeks and not just days to preepare the campaign. But unless they are aided by some dramatic new developpment in the If-Blocks themselves, that could just be more of a disadvantage than an advantage. It was the short burst of intense activity and the evident urgency of the crisis which won the support of canvassers and voters in June.

Now, the case has to be presented to voters in more measured and more developed form. And that is much more of a challenge. _