Flynn furious at cumann shutdown

BEVERLY FLYNN, the Mayo TD expelled from Fianna Fáil last year, yesterday decried the party’s decision to dissolve a local cumann in Castlebar as “very shabby treatment.”

Fianna Fáil’s Árd Chomhairle unanimously decided on Thursday night to effectively shut down the Micheál Ó Móráin cumann in Mayo’s largest town, for long the political power base of the Flynn family.

In a lengthy statement issued yesterday, FF said it had been left with no option.

“The cumann, over a period of time, had failed to demonstrate the loyalty to the party expected of it.”

The decision was taken as part of a larger fundamental review of its structure and organisation in Mayo.

The unilateral move to close down the cumann reflects the internal problems that the party has faced in the five-seater Mayo constituency since Ms Flynn was expelled from the organisation last year. It is believed that the majority of the 126-member cumann stayed loyal to Ms Flynn notwithstanding the fact that she was no longer a member of the party. It led to internal ructions both within the cumann and in the wider constituency organisation.

The decision followed an inquiry conducted by Communications Minister Noel Dempsey and the party’s general secretary Seán Dorgan.

The decisiveness of the move was prompted by party concerns to demonstrate that it had severed all links with Ms Flynn.

But Ms Flynn hit out at the decision yesterday as unwarranted and unfair.

She said the party was attempting to suppress the democratic franchise of the cumann members who had elected her as a FF TD for Mayo.

“The manner in which the cumann members were treated was contemptible, in my view,” she said.

Ms Flynn said she had no intentions of setting up an independent organisation in Mayo, where she will be campaigning for re-election in 2007.