Two prominent Galway Fine Gael politicians handed in their notice ahead of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation yesterday.
Galway will play centre stage in the appointment of a new Fine Gael leader, as the party’s ard fheis will – for the first time ever – be held in the University of Galway next month, and the votes of Galway West’s two Oireachtas members will be crucial for whoever becomes next Fine Gael leader.
Galway East TD Ciarán Cannon made national headlines on Tuesday this week when he announced he will not be contesting the next general election. The Fine Gael deputy, a former leader of the Progressive Democrats, blamed the current “toxicity in politics” for his decision to retire at the relatively young age of 59.
“At times it feels like it’s open season on you and your family,” Cannon told journalists. “That’s not acceptable, nor indeed sustainable, if we want to have good people choosing politics as a career,” he said.
On Wednesday morning, Cathaoirleach of Galway County Council, Councillor Liam Carroll, said he was quitting Fine Gael. The Athenry/Oranmore councillor has indicated he intends to run again at this June’s local elections as a “Community Candidate”.
Within ten minutes of announcing he was ripping up his Fine Gael membership, Carroll says he was contacted by “an elected politician” inviting him to join the newly-formed Independent Ireland party headed by Galway-Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice. Carroll declined.
It is considered highly unusual for a prominent and serving mayor/cathaoirleach to resign their party membership, especially in the run-up to an election. There have been persistent rumours of discord in the Oranmore branch of Fine Gael for several months, with long-festering personality clashes thought to be at root cause.
Carroll said he did not attend the Fine Gael Oranmore/Athenry selection convention last December due to a particularly bad dose of Covid, nor did he accompany taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Moycullen bypass the same week. As he did not attend the selection convention, Carroll - an active member of Fine Gael since 1982 – was not selected to be the party’s local election candidate.
“I was left in limbo by the party from Christmas until I represented Galway at the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York, so that’s why I resigned,” he told the Advertiser.
Hildegarde Naughton is Fine Gael’s senior figure in Galway. Along with justice minister Helen McEntee, the 45-year-old from Oranmore flanked Leo Varadkar as he gave his shock resignation speech on the steps of Government Buildings on Wednesday.
Formally dressed in Fine Gael’s trademark blue, Naughton appeared composed as Varadkar dropped his resignation bombshell, while other senior Fine Gael ministers appeared shell-shocked behind the taoiseach’s podium.
Naughton is not considered a frontrunner for the soon-to-be vacant Fine Gael top job, but the party’s current chief whip will hold considerable influence in any jostling for position ahead of Fine Gael’s ard dheis, to be held in her constituency on Saturday, April 6. Varadkar has asked for a new party leader to be elected in advance of this date. Naughton has previously been supportive of Cork TD Simon Coveney’s ambitions to lead Fine Gael.
Across the Corrib, Fine Gael’s main man is Senator Seán Kyne. The Connemara man missed out on a Galway West seat at the 2020 general election by a handful of votes. He polled just 325 fewer first-preference votes than his party and constituency colleague, Naughton, who won the final spot in the five-seat Galway West constituency on the thirteenth count.
Moycullen-based Kyne was personally appointed to the Seanad by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in 2020. The former Fine Gael chief whip and minister for the Gaeltacht was a Galway West TD from 2011 to 2020. His senatorship was seen as a reward from Varadkar for supporting social housing in Moycullen, and opposing a zenophobic, anti-refugee protest in Oughterard which probably cost him Dáil votes in his local electoral area. In a leadership contest, Kyne is thought to favour Wicklow’s Simon Harris TD for the top job.
There are three Fine Gael members sitting on Galway City Council, and ten on Galway County Council.
Fine Gael’s constitution stipulates that TDs, senators and MEPs hold 65% of leadership votes. Ordinary members hold 25% of votes, while councillors have 10%.
