Keaveney objection raised with FF leader

Fianna Fáil Galway East TD Micheál Kitt has objected to party leader Micheál Martin over how Labour chairman Colm Keaveney was recruited into the party.

Mr Kitt told Mr Martin at the party’s weekly frontbench meeting yesterday he was unhappy with how the arrival of Mr Keaveney, a fellow Galway East deputy, into Fianna Fáil was handled last week. In particular, Mr Kitt objected to the fact that very little notice was given to him or the constituency organisation. “Basically, it was the first front-bench meeting for Colm Keaveney,” said Mr Kitt.

“I welcomed him and said he has a good track record and is a vote-getter. But I commented that it would have been better for the local organisation and the local deputy to be informed. It would certainly be better, especially when you have local radio and newspapers ringing. I think the point was accepted.”

Mathews and FF
The front bench also discussed next year's European elections, but sources said there was no discussion of individual candidates. Fianna Fail is giving Independent Dublin South TD Peter Mathews a month to decide whether he wants to stand for the party in next year's European elections.

The Fianna Fáil selection convention for the three-seat Dublin constituency is due to take place in January.

However, Tiernan Brady, who is a confirmed candidate for the Fianna Fáil nomination in Dublin, said it would be the party’s rank-and-file who would decide who would be on the ticket. Mr Mathews has said he was “not fussy about the jersey I wear” if he competed in the European elections, and last night added he would want to talk “principal to principal” to anyone who wanted him to run. But Mr Brady said the era of “parachute candidates, and the old politics that era represented, has ended”.