Lenihan slammed as speaker for Collins commemoration

BRIAN LENIHAN should not address the annual Michael Collins commemoration in Béal na mBláth because Fianna Fáil’s predecessors murdered Mr Collins, a Fine Gael senator has said.

Liam Twomey, Fine Gael finance spokesman in the Seanad, has criticised the decision to invite Mr Lenihan to deliver the address at the August 22 event.

Mr Twomey said it was wrong for a Fianna Fáil minister to address what is traditionally regarded as a Fine Gael event.

Fianna Fáil’s predecessors in the anti-treaty camp during the civil war “murdered Michael Collins”, he said.

Despite this, Mr Twomey said his opposition to Mr Lenihan’s address was “not about civil war politics” but about “ideals of government” and the beliefs of Michael Collins.

“The Fianna Fáil leadership (or lack thereof) does not deserve the respect of the Irish people. The Michael Collins commemoration will give them an aura of acceptability that they will only abuse,” he said.

“It is Fianna Fáil ministers and Taoisigh like Bertie Ahern, Charlie Haughey, and Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor and even Ivor Callely that have let us down over the years.

“Fine Gael, the party that created the state under Michael Collins and declared it a Republic under John A Costello, have always believed that a government and its ministers should be held to account.

“It is a person that believes in this ethos, that was started by Michael Collins, that should be speaking at the commemoration and not a minister and a government that not only let us down over the past couple of years and allowed the banks to dictate their policies, but who also have brought us to the brink of financial meltdown.”

The committee which organises the commemoration is independent of Fine Gael, though its chair is party member Cllr Dermot Collins. He expressed disappointment with Mr Twomey’s views, saying the Oireachtas was the place for adversarial politics.

The whole point of the invitation to Mr Lenihan was to “move on” from civil war politics, he said.