FF leader under fire from angry grassroots
The chairman of the Jack Lynch Cumann — which represents large parts of north Cork — resigned from the party yesterday and said the leadership had lost touch with the grassroots membership.
Tony Rodgers said he was leaving the party because of “the decision by Micheál Martin not to allow Munster MEP, Brian Crowley to contest the presidential election”.
Mr Crowley announced earlier this week that he would no longer be seeking the party’s nomination because he felt the party “continues to be divided on its electoral approach”.
Cork city councillor, Kenneth O’Flynn, said there was “extreme disappointment throughout the city and county” with the decision not to contest the presidential race.
Mr Rodgers said there is a sense of disillusionment amongst grassroots members about Mr Martin’s attempts to reinvent the party.
“The head office is making decisions and there’s no involvement of local representatives,” he said.
The 21-year-old said Mr Martin’s approach to Gay Byrne to run for the presidency was “a total embarrassment”.
The student of politics in UCC, who has just returned from an internship in the New York state assembly, said Mr Martin is doing nothing to make the party more attractive to young people.
He was also critical of the “uninspired” choice of area representatives, appointed recently to start rebuilding the party from the bottom.
“In Cork city there were no women appointed and no young people. Of the four people appointed in the City three of them are former election candidates, while two have served on the council,” he said.
“That message to the public seems pretty clear: same old faces, same old Fianna Fáil.”
His resignation follows sharp criticism of the leader by Fianna Fáil member and the University of Limerick Student Union leader, Derek Daly. He wrote on an internal party discussion forum that Mr Martin was a “fucking disgrace” over his handling of the presidential election.
“He is not leader of our party, he is acting as if he is the leader of the People’s Republic of Micheál Martin,” he wrote.
Clare County Councillor, Pat Daly, said Mr Martin had made a “serious error”.
Others in the party have rushed to the defence of the leader saying he is working hard to rebuild the party and deserves all the support he can get.
A Fianna Fáil spokeswoman declined to comment on behalf of Micheál Martin.
FINE GAEL’S presidential candidate Gay Mitchell has been forced to once again defend his clemency plea for a murderer on death row, saying it was based on the conviction that the death penalty is “barbaric”.
The mother of a teenage girl who was murdered in 1980 said it was “wrong” that a man who sought leniency for her killer was now running for president.
But Mr Mitchell said it was time for other candidates to state where they stand on the presidency.
“I have successfully campaigned against the death penalty of a Nigerian woman caught in adultery, sentenced to death by stoning. I oppose the death penalty in the Middle East, China and everywhere else,” he said.
“My life-long opposition to the death penalty is based on a conviction that to gas, inject, electrocute, shoot, hang or stone a person to death is barbaric, and contributes to a sense of violence being acceptable.”
Spokespeople for the three other declared candidates, Sean Gallagher, Mary Davis and Michael D Higgins, confirmed they oppose the death penalty.
The GAA commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh said he decided not to enter the race because he would have had to “enter politics in some way or another” to contest the election.
Meanwhile, the former independent candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon once again refused to rule out entering the race.
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