Fianna Fáil TD to step down after 37 years in politics

VETERAN Fianna Fáil TD Noel Davern last night announced he was standing down to make way for “new blood” in the Dáil.

After nearly four decades in frontline politics, the Tipperary South deputy said he would not contest the next general election, expected in 2007.

“It’s 37 years since I went into the Dáil first, and it was my 60th birthday there Christmas Eve, and I said ‘no, it is time to get out and leave a younger person in’.

“It has been a long time and things have changed a lot and people I knew in politics are gone out of it, and again the atmosphere and the new systems of technology which has left me way behind I’m afraid.”

The TD singled out his short period as Education Minister from 1991 to 1992 and his stint as a Minister of State in the Agriculture Department as the high points of his career in the Dáil.

Mr Davern served in the European Parliament from 1979 to 1984, and was the party’s spokesman on European Affairs from 1995 to 1997.

The announcement makes Tipperary South a key battleground “swing seat” in the next election.

Meanwhile, Clare Fine Gael TD Pat Breen has been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat after suffering a health scare over the Christmas period.

Scotching local rumours that he had suffered a heart attack, Mr Breen said yesterday: “I’m fine. There was no heart attack and I am going to take it easy for a couple of weeks.”

The 48-year-old said: “What has happened should serve as a wake-up call to anyone in political life and that everyone should go for a routine check-up, because I had no symptoms.”

Mr Breen spent two nights at Ennis General Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit as he underwent tests after he was admitted with the heart complaint.

He said he believed that his irregular heartbeat was brought on by the stress caused by the death of his mother at the end of November and “burning the candle at both ends when it comes to work”.