O’Keeffe remarks - Mé féin rules in politics

Politicians are not expected just to represent the people who supported them, but all of the people in the constituency in which they are elected.

That is the essence of representative democracy.

Most politicians are probably most receptive to appeals from their own supporters.

But few would be so brazen as to tell constituents to buzz off because they voted for somebody else in the last election. Yet this was what Ned O’Keeffe essentially told the parents’ council at Rathcormac National School last week.

This was not something blurted out in the heat of political argument. It was a calculated decision, because he repeated it afterwards during a radio interview.

The parents have been campaigning for permanent facilities at the school, to which a prefab was first added to the three-room school in 1967. Since then a total of 10 prefabs have been assembled.

A site for a new building has already been purchased, but it has been lying idle for a number of years. Parents are naturally anxious to replace the prefabs.

“If Rathcormac want me to support them they should support me,” Mr O’Keeffe declared in a radio interview that was replayed on RTÉ yesterday.

Is he representing Fianna Fáil or Mé Féin?