The second Sinn Féin councillor to quit the party within a week today declared it had lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the working class.
John Dwyer, who was re-elected to New Ross Urban District Council in Wexford on a Sinn Féin ticket, accused the republican leadership of building a party of faces rather than policies.
His resignation marks a triple-whammy for Gerry Adams, just a week after veteran Dublin councillor Christy Burke stood down from the ranks and a poor European election performance.
Mr Dwyer, a long-time trade union activist, said he left the party because it was no longer the voice the Republic’s working-class heartlands.
“The Labour Party has won the battle for the hearts and minds in working class areas,” he said.
The 47-year-old, who left the party before in the mid-1980s over a disagreement with some members, said it was clear Sinn Féin was pushing a doomed strategy of personality politicians.
In an attack on two of the party’s leading lights in the Republic, he said failed MEP candidate Mary Lou McDonald had no track record in grass-roots local politics.
“She is a very able politician but in terms of having a grasp of real-life everyday problems, she’s not in a position to understand that sort of thing,” he said.
Mr Dwyer also claimed rising Sinn Féin star Senator Pearse Doherty was hand-picked by the leadership as a “safe pair of hands” and more suited to a career in life-assurance than radical politics.
“Building a party of faces rather than policies is never a good thing,” he said.
The now independent councillor claimed Sinn Féin had no policies on fundamental working class issues like recent changes to rent allowances for the low-paid and unemployed.
But despite Mr Burke’s resignation and the defection of another Wexford Sinn Féin councillor to Fianna Fail two years ago, Mr Dwyer insisted there was not huge discontent within the party ranks.
“The majority of the people within the party are content, that’s what made me leave,” he said.