2 2 Nov/Dec 2016
L
ONG-RUNNING TENSIONS between Fine Gael
members in County Kildare are about to create
difficulties for Kildare County Council and
Fine Gael following the suspension of righteous
Councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy from Fine
Gael for making well-founded allegations about the
leader of Fianna Fáil on the Council, allegations met
with a deaf ear by officials and other councillors.
This energetic councillor’s refusal to submit or be
silenced raises questions about cronyism, and of a tra-
ditional old boys’ club mentality. It
suggests ‘new politics’ is coming
only very slowly to rural Ireland.
Background
Up to 2011 Fine Gael had passed two
electoral terms without a TD in Kil-
dare South. However, following 16
months of difficult campaigning and
his eclipse of two strong rivals,
32-year-old golden-boy local farmer
Martin Heydon brought the party a
landslide victory in that years General Election. He col
-
lected a remarkable 33% of first preference votes.
Deputy Heydon built a likeable persona for himself
within Fine Gael, regarded by members as a politician
who, in the best Fine Gael tradition, would not rock the
boat. He was also believed to have found favour with the
grandees in the party.
Although Enda Kenny has chastised party members
for the poor optics that result from favours and jobs for
family, Heydon hired his sister, Rosemary, as a parlia-
mentary assistant and co-opted distant cousin Ivan
Keatley, the best man at his wedding, to take his former
council seat, all without rebuke. However, there was
one aspect of Martin Heydon’s career that the Taoise-
ach took issue with: his association with the Dáil’s
‘five-a-side’ gang, a group of about ten right-wing male
TDs who met to vent their various grievances in politi
-
cal life with bright-eyed South Dublin toff Eoghan
Murphy TD as ringleader. Once, however, Kenny’s
understandable dislike of secret groups and meetings
was made clear to Heydon, he parted ways with his
footie pals and the group dissolved in 2014.
As another General Election loomed on the horizon,
Heydon was making plans. With his impressive result
from 2011 in play, the party planned on running two can-
didates in the Kildare South constituency. The
forward-looking TD already had a partner in mind, a local
solicitor who had campaigned on Heydon’s behalf in the
run up to the 2011 vote. The TD was ready, and appeared
well positioned, to repay the loyalty. However, the Taoi
-
seach had other plans.
Having brought in gender quotas while in government,
Fine Gael was in danger of damaging itself by flouting
them. Reeling from a collapse in support but seeing
female candidates as providing an edge over their
backwoods rivals Fianna Fáil, Kenny and party strate-
gists drew up a secret list of more than a dozen women
Ethics cases to answer
for FF in SIPO, and FG
An expendable but feisty Kildare Councillor
gets traduced and shafted for taking a
mainstream position on ethics about the
leader of Fianna Fáil on the Council
by Neil Markey
NEWS
McLoughlin Healy pointed
to the voting record which
showed the vast majority of
her motions were seconded
by her colleagues before
this, with none supported
afterwards
Fiona McLoughlin Healy
Nov/Dec 2016 2 3
- and a few men - to fill roles across the country.
Party organisers, alongside Terry Prone’s PR firm
The Communications Clinic, ran a six-week
course to train eager new candidates in prepara-
tion for the election, all monitored by Fine Gael
general secretary Tom Curran. Speaking at the
time, Mr Curran said he didn't expect the move
would cause trouble within the party.
Kenny’s secret weapon for Kildare South was
a relatively new politician, Fiona McLoughlin
Healy, a trained nurse who had volunteered in a
Romanian orphanage before returning to NUIG
where she topped her class every year in both
Law and Politics, and then to Ulster University
where she again obtained a distinction. A
councillor in the Newbridge area since 2014,
who runs a property-sales website, she was seen
as bouncy if somewhat politically naive. She
announced at the earliest opportunity that she
believed in transparent operations and the par
-
ty’s commitment to gender quotas. Her appetite
for ‘new politics’, a more socially liberal Fine
Gael party and willingness to break ranks, irri-
tated old-timers and made her the target of
cynical ridicule in local political circles,
McLoughlin Healy addressed some of the criti-
cism, established a formidable presence on
social media and seemed to be moving towards
election. Yet she faced a difficult campaign.
A few older male Fine Gael members in the
area took issue with the very notion of gender
quotas and often were quite vocal in their oppo-
sition to a female candidate, yearning for a
return to past, admittedly unrewarded, selection
processes. McLoughlin Healy did little to
assuage their fears, pushing herself forward on
national television about sexism and her belief
in gender quotas. A source working in the Coun
-
cil told Village that it was not just the grassroots
members who felt uncomfortable over the quota
issue, but that the councillor’s own colleagues
expressed annoyance at the special training Fine
Gael had provided her.
With Martin Heydon’s running mate plans
scuppered by his party leader, there was ani
-
mosity towards his new female colleague. He
notably showed no interest in engaging over a
vote-management and boundary strategy.
Heydon was also proving implausibly popular
with many local Fianna Fáil supporters, which
only gave traction to ongoing rumours that
people from the Heydon camp were mischie
-
vously stirring confusion for voters between Ms
McLoughlin Healy and the similarly named,
though quite different, Fianna Fáil candidate
Fiona O’Loughlin who is currently a TD and
leader of Fianna Fáil on Kildare County Council.
This coupled with claims that Mr Heydon’s sup
-
porters had brazenly told voters to pass on their
second preference to the Fianna Fáil candi-
date, a claim he denied to Fine Gael insiders and
called a "a dreadful slur", stoked tensions.
As polling day drew near, the pair appeared
on a special election edition of 'The People’s
Debate' with a lively Vincent Browne, with
rather poor results. Ms McLoughlin Healy’s
energy and eagerness were striking but she was
attacked from the crowd by members of her
own party over gender quotas. Luckily for her,
Mr Heydon’s performance drew most of the
attention, as he struggled with questions and
appeared unfortunately quick-tempered when
challenged.
The Act seems to have been breached and an action clearly lies to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 2001
Martin Heydon TD

Loading

© 2015 Village Magazine

Back to Top