WANTED: Female condidates to contest the next local election.
That’s the invitation issued by Fianna Fail’s Willie O’Dea, who defended his controversial decision not to relinquish his ministerial severance package, and conceded that his party had a multiplicity of problems.
Fianna Fail, he told the Limerick Post, had earmarked potential local female candidates.
“A few names have been submitted. Limerick City Council has just three women out of 17 councillors and there are four out of 28 in the County Council.
“We are heading towards one local authority and it is important that we now do the groundwork in attracting as many female candidates as possible”.
Turning to the upcoming presidential election, Deputy O’Dea admitted that a bad defeat for Fianna Fail would have had a damning effect.
He acknowledged that the decision taken by Brian Crowley, MEP, not to allow his name go forward, would lead to some controversy about the leadership.
“Once the presidential election is over, the party will get behind Michéal Martin”.
Asked for his reaction to former UL president, Ed Walsh’s comments at the Michael Collins commemoration, that FF had allowed “intoxicated joyriders to incentivise speculative building and borrowing, and blamed Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen for permitting uncontrolled expansion of the public sector, he replied:
‘It is known that Ed Walsh has strong Fine Gael connections and therefore, would not be totally objective.
“I accept that we developed a bubble that blew too high – it was a mistake and totally unrealistic -it should have been dealt with sooner but cheap money was a big problem.
‘if we had listened to the Opposition calling for further investment here, there and everywhere, the situation would have been worse…”
Asked about the severance payments still being paid to FF TDs for their time as ministers, he answered:
“It’s part of my salary – the directive from our leader to give them up didn’t apply to me, but to those leaving the outgoing government.
“I had got three quarters of my severance pay already – it was paid on a weekly basis. I got no directive”.
Asked what strategies going forward are under consideration, Mr O’Dea said:
“We will be having a think-in.
“We had two very good meetings in Limerick which attracted a lot of young people.
“We were in government 14 years during which a lot of good things happened, but we ran into financial turmoil and were severely punished – it’s going to be a hard road back but we have TDs and senators very determined, but it’s always tough in opposition”.
On a lighter note, when asked to comment on singer, Sinead O’Connor’s twitter to Enda Kenny, inviting him to “come up and see me sometime,” Deputy O’Dea sighed – “isn’t power a great aphrodisiac all the same”.
