THE PROGRESSIVE Democrats will be wound up in early September, its former leader Mary Harney said last night.
As she entered what is likely to be the last-ever meeting of the party executive in Galway last night Ms Harney said that the formalities of bringing the party to an end after almost 23 years was a time-consuming process but was likely to be completed soon after the summer recess.
“For me, spiritually, the party came to an end the night we handed over the party archives to UCD [earlier this summer]. Our founder Desmond O’Malley made a terrific speech,” she said.
“From here on in, it’s dealing with the future. We had 23 very exciting years. I think we did for our part make a fundamental difference to Irish life. We have been in government for a substantial part of our history which we could never anticipated in 1986 when the party was formed,” added Ms Harney.
Ms Harney made her comments as senior figures in the party disagreed over how soon the party could in fact be wound up. The acting leader, Galway West TD Noel Grealish, said his expectation was that the letter seeking the deregistration of the party could be handed in to the Clerk of the Dáil Kieran Coughlan within the next fortnight.
However, party chairman Peter Wyre said that it would be impossible to wind up the party within that timeframe given the myriad of legal obligations surrounding the process of extinguishing the party.
Mr Grealish also expressed confidence that he, Ms Harney and Ms O’Malley could forge a loose alliance that would act together when negotiating the programme for government and supporting the Fianna Fáil-led Coalition.
“I am hopeful the three of us can sit down and decide the best course of action. We have not had any discussions yet,” he said.
Ms Harney said she hoped that such an arrangement could be made.
She added: “The one thing the country needs above everything else is stability in government so that we can take very tough decisions. The decisions we will take in September and October will be much tougher than anything that has been seen in Ireland before.”