“The people are angry and the top level of the party will have to accept the verdict of the people and listen to the message they are sending out.”
This is the view of Fine Gael Galway West TD Brian Walsh who was reacting to Fine Gael’s mixed performance at the Galway City Local Elections, where the party increased it’s representation in City Hall from three seats to four, but did so unconvincingly. All it’s candidates, across the three wards, were elected, but only one, Galway City West’s Pearce Flannery, exceeded the quota. The remaining elected candidates - John Walsh, brother of sitting TD Brian; the Mayor of Galway Padraig Conneely; and sitting councillor Frank Fahy failed to reach the quota, but still managed to get the final seats in their respective areas. It was an underwhelming performance.
“It wasn’t pretty but we got there,” Dep Walsh told the Galway Advertiser. “The Fine Gael core vote was all that came out for us.”
Dep Walsh acknowledges that the party’s role in Government, championing austerity and an array of punishing new taxes has come back to bite FG hard.
“People are reacting to the medical cards being taken off the elderly and children,” he said. “They are reacting to the water charges. They are angry with this Government and they have sent us a message in this election. The FG Top Brass will have to accept that and listen to this message.”
Dep Walsh says that the election results need to force a change in thinking about the economy, austerity, and taxes within Fine Gael.
“We have to take on board the message from the people, and it has to be reflected in a new Programme for Government,” he says. “The middle classes and people on lower down the economic scale have contributed enough and have suffered enough. They cannot be asked to contribute any more.”
