Fianna Fáil at decisive crossroads: Change or become irrelevant

IT is almost inevitable that Fianna Fáil would, sooner or later, reach a do-or-die crossroads after the party’s unprecedented election defeat in 2011.

It is possible to argue that another party, maybe one less in awe of its past, would have reached that point sooner than Fianna Fáil but, as events of recent days have shown, the party’s inner circle seems unable to decide whether it wants to rebuild itself in the image of its predecessors or embrace a future where its traditional cute-hoor, whatever-you’re-having-yourself culture would not find an viable audience.

The resignation of Senator Averil Power and party activist Ken Curtin may not announce the party’s arrival at that crossroads but it certainly brings that decisive moment a lot closer. Yesterday’s admission by the party’s Clare deputy and spokesperson on transport, tourism and sport Timmy Dooley that his Parliamentary Party is “male, stale and outside the Pale” adds to the impression that a day of reckoning must be at hand.