Lee’s resignation an act of betrayal

GEORGE Lee’s resignation is an act of disloyalty to the 27,000 people who voted for him and to the hundreds of people who canvassed for him.

More than those, it is an act of gross betrayal to Fine Gael, which invested faith, time, and great energy in him.

Mr Lee’s experience as a television economics reporter and his nine months as a TD do not entitle him to a senior economic role in a party of 31,000 members. Fine Gael secured 605,333 votes in last summer’s local elections.

Yes, he is a qualified economist. But Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan has vastly superior academic economic qualifications. Mr Lee’s former Fine Gael Oireachtas colleagues Joe McHugh TD, Kieran O’Donnell TD, and Sen Paschal Donohue are qualified economists. And his former colleagues Seán Barrett TD, Frank Feighan TD, and John Perry TD have vast practical understanding of commerce.

In any event, he was given ample scope in debate, through his position as Chairperson of the Fine Gael Economic Forum, through his membership of the pre-Budget Fine Gael Business Roadshow, and through his weekly attendance at meetings of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party.

There will be a few days of media heat, and the same tired anti-Fine Gael media voices will refrain, yet again, that this has “fatally undermined the Kenny leadership”.

When the political lava cools, who will be buried beneath?

Paul Hickey

Gamehill

Castlecoote

Co Roscommon