Ó Neachtain says he is too ill to campaign

FIANNA FÁIL MEP Seán Ó Neachtain has said his sudden withdrawal from the European elections was unavoidable as he was too ill to run an active campaign.

The Galway-based politician, a Fianna Fáil’s frontrunner in the Northwest constituency, stunned party colleagues on Monday when he announced he would not contest the June 5th elections.

Mr Ó Neachtain told The Irish Timesyesterday he has been incapacitated by a chest infection to which he did not pay sufficient attention and which resulted in his condition deteriorating seriously.

While he is expected to make a full recovery, he said the illness has left him in a state of constant exhaustion.

Mr Ó Neachtain said his decision was the hardest he had ever made in his political career and he was very disappointed. However, he was not sufficiently well to fight a six-week campaign.

“I am satisfied that I have made the right decision. I would not have been able to make a proper challenge for the seat,” he said.

A senior Fianna Fáil source said last night that Mr Ó Neachtain’s departure came as a “bolt out of the blue”. The source said the party would move very quickly to find a replacement and hoped to do so without a convention.

The party’s second candidate, Paschal Mooney, is based in Co Leitrim. Fianna Fáil will therefore be expected to find a candidate in the southern half of the constituency, preferably in Co Galway.

The party last night ruled out the possibility that any of the sitting TDs in the constituency would be named on the basis that it could erode the Coalition’s small majority in the Dáil.

Minister for Rural Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív said he was not interested. It is unlikely that any of the other Galway-based TDs will be asked to run.