Martin must look to the future

Amid reports that Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, was consulting with former party ministers and TDs on the future of the party, it should be pointed out to him that they are most certainly not the future.

I believe the party can have a future, initially as the main opposition to Fine Gael, and in time a Governmental party again.

However, in order to do this, they need to cut ties with members of the party associated with the collapse of the economy and bank guarantee.

The party is now on its metaphorical knees, and has literally nothing more to lose, so why would they drag their name back through the mud of the past?

If I was the leader of Fianna Fáil now I would brave what can be expected to be hostile students in universities and colleges around the country.

I would not go in and make a clichéd speech about the future which would pass over their heads, but instead I would go in an informal capacity, and ask them where they see the country going.

I would strip back the party barriers, and ask their advice, and listen to their thoughts.

Fighting for votes from the middle aged and elderly is like starting to read a novel at the centre page!

Begin again, and find a new breed of follower. As much experience as the old TDs and ministers have, their input is worthless, especially when you then bring their views to young voters who will only remember them as the people who drove the country into the ground.

A 20-year-old doesn’t care what Noel Dempsey or Batt O’Keefe did before they were born.

Fianna Fáil is a party with a future, but it needs ten years of rebuilding, and when new faces arrive with new ideas, they will be in government again.

As long as the reputation of the ‘boom boys’ remains within the party, Fianna Fáil will remain on the opposition benches, shouting at, and for, no one.

Justin Kelly

Edenderry

Co Offaly