Kate O'Connell won't contest by-election as 'faction in Fine Gael planned my exit'

Kate O'Connell said her relationship with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar never recovered after she supported Simon Coveney in the 2017 Fine Gael leadership contest. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Kate O'Connell has announced that she will not be seeking the Fine Gael by-election nomination after claiming that members of the party have been working to force her out.

Ms O'Connell, who lost her Dáil seat in Dublin Bay South in the last election, said there has been an attempt to label her as "undesirable, unsuitable and possibly not good enough" by people in Fine Gael.

Announcing her decision not to put her name forward, she said: “I made it clear through various channels that I was available,”. But she said there is a “faction” within Fine Gael that had “planned the exit of myself”.

"It appears that preparations have been made for a long time that it would be impossible for me to win a convention."

Ms O'Connell said her relationship with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar never recovered after she supported Simon Coveney in the 2017 Fine Gael leadership contest.

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She said this was despite "her best efforts" and the fact that she has always been loyal to the party.

Ms O'Connell detailed a number of "personalised comments and attacks" that occurred when she was a Fine Gael TD.

She recalled one party meeting in which "somebody had actually gone to the effort of getting a sod of turf, putting it into her handbag, and she was going to present it to me in front of people at the meeting.

She said:

That mightn't seem that serious, but that's designed to diminish.

The pharmacist said there had also been talk of a sign being erected outside her business pointing to the M30 and Westmeath which she said was "hugely disrespectful seeing that I live in the constituency, I married somebody from the constituency whose family served the area for generations, I have three children in school in the constituency, I'm an employer in the constituency."

She added: "There has been a faction, I would feel within the party, possibly since the leadership campaign which I had thought was long gone out with the tide, that has planned the exit of myself," she told RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne show.

It had been expected that Ms O'Connell would put her name in the hat following the resignation of Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy.

Councillor James Geoghegan has already indicated that he will seek the party's nomination.

Ms O'Connell said she believes Fine Gael is a broad church but "clearly not broad enough". She said she will not be leaving the party.

"My family has been involved in Fine Gael for generations, and I don't think you should leave a party just because of one person or a couple of instances. I think it's far greater than that," she said.