Brendan Griffin wanted a Fine Gael ticket with GAA legend Colm Cooper

By Anne Lucey

Junior minister for sport Brendan Griffin has said he and former Kerry footballer Colm ‘Gooch’ Cooper would have made a great full-forward line for Fine Gael in the next general election after reports that the five-time All-Ireland winner has ruled out being on the ticket for Fine Gael in the five-seater Kerry constituency.

Speculation about Mr Cooper, 35, whose late father Mike was chairman of Fine Gael in Killarney, has been growing in recent months.

Mr Griffin said there is potential within the party membership locally, including among councillors, to seek a candidate. However, he also appealed to anyone who believes they can win a seat for Fine Gael to come forward to him.

The Kerry constituency is one of only four where Fine Gael has yet to hold a convention.

Mr Cooper, who is assistant manager with Killarney AIB, is a hugely popular figure locally.

Senior Fine Gael sources locally said they were very keen to have the footballer on the ticket. Mr Griffin was encouraging the approaches as it would almost certainly secure a second seat for the party. However, the party felt Mr Cooper was not inclined to enter politics right now.

The minister was speaking on Radio Kerry.

Meanwhile, amid growing concern among the public and its own consultants that University Hospital Kerry (UHK) is being downgraded by the South SouthWest Hospital Group to a treatment centre for minor ailments, Mr Griffin said a hospital was like a bank — “when a run starts, it’s very hard to get it back”.

However he and Health Minister Simon Harris were working to secure the hospital’s future, he said.

Equipment lies broken and consultants have left or are leaving and have not being replaced and there are nursing staff shortages and long waiting lists for patients.

It is feared that the more than 300-bed Tralee hospital, renamed two years ago from Kerry General to UHK, will not maintain its acute status without key personnel.

It has just one geriatrician for the region, despite the region having one of the oldest populations in the country.

Mr Griffin said he believed problems with the hospital were down to management issues in the South SouthWest Hospital Group.

Consultants had pointed out a number of very obvious areas where there had been “an inexplicable lack of response from the South Southwest hospital group”, Mr Griffin said.

Yet levels of expenditure on health were unprecedented. There were too many managers and not enough frontline personnel and too many changes in top-level management in Kerry also, he said.

Last month, the South SouthWest Hospital Group, which was set up to improve nine acute hospitals across counties Cork, Kerry, Waterford and Tipperary, and Kilkenny said “there is no question of downgrading UHK”.