Laois Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming has said that he voted for Billy Kelleher in the party’s selection convention for this year’s Presidential Election and that the party should have backed ‘one of their own’ ahead of former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin.
Gavin withdrew from the race after it was revealed he had failed to pay back over €3,000 to a former tenant, leaving Fianna Fáil without an active candidate in a contest ultimately won comfortably by Catherine Connolly.
Speaking on this week’s LoveLaois Podcast on LaoisToday, Fleming said the first time he met Jim Gavin was in Portlaoise on the Thursday before his campaign came to an end.
“He was just the wrong choice, full stop, for a variety of reasons … people have to remember, not everybody follows the GAA, right? And next thing, a lot of women don’t follow it to that extent.
“And the day that was announced, I was at home, and I had my wife and two sisters in law, none of them had ever heard of Jim Gavin.
“And I said, it’s the manager of the Dublin football team. And my wife turned, she’s going to kill me now for mentioning her, but she turned to me, ‘if you wanted a big GAA name, why didn’t you pick a Henry Shefflin?’
“And I heard her, and how right she was, and I did feel all along, because he was in the army, and because he was more of a man’s man.
“This is the first time I’ve said this publicly, I voted for Billy Kelleher. I’d never met Jim Gavin … I understand the logic, he was a well-known name in Dublin, and Dublin is the capital city, and it’s important to have somebody like that.
“I understand the logic of getting somebody like Jim Gavin on the ticket, but I actually feel that we should have run one of our own.
“That’s the first time I’ve said it publicly, and I took the view, we should have run one of our own.”
Who would he lay the blame at for the whole fiasco? “Blame? I don’t do blame,” he said. “Things go right, things go wrong, nobody can get everything right.
“I’ll tell you who I lay the responsibility on. The Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members who voted for Jim Gavin, some of whom had never met Jim Gavin.
“There was no whip, we all had a free vote, but some people felt a bit of pressure to vote for Jim Gavin.”
How does he feel Billy Kelleher would have performed?
“He would have performed better than Jim Gavin … it would have been a different campaign, you can’t predict, but he would have done substantially better in my opinion.”
In the wake of the election, there have been murmurings of a no-confidence motion in leader Micheal Martin but it’s a topic he doesn’t get drawn into.
“I give you the answer that Jim O’Callaghan gave the other day when he was asked, ‘I can’t read the future’.
“I hear mutterings about a no-confidence vote, but as of now, I don’t see one.”
Does he see an heir to the Fianna Fáil throne amid the party ranks.
“Well, at this stage, the one minister I would publicly say I think is doing exceptionally well is Jim O’Callaghan.
“He’s in his fifties and he has a lot of experience. He’s a barrister, which in Justice, in Home Affairs, it’s a department that suits his skills and knowledge set. And he’s very good.
“The job matches the man or the man matches the job. And I think it’s a good fit and he’s doing particularly well.
“And he’s been around a good while in Dáil Éireann, so he’s well experienced and he knows how far he can go and how far he can’t go.
“He’s quiet as an individual. He doesn’t jump around the place like some other people do, looking for TikTok coverage or anything like that.
“He’s modest himself. But I’m just saying, as of now, there’s other good ministers, but I think he’s doing very good.
“Whether that makes a good Taoiseach, who knows? I’m not even going there.”
As for the Presidential Election and the eventual winner, Catherine Connolly, Deputy Fleming said he served with her on the Public Accounts Committee for a number of years.
“Personally, I’ve known her, she was on the Public Accounts Committee with me for years, which I chaired, and I’ve said this to any people who have been talking to her. She was outstanding.
“In my view, she was the best member of the Public Accounts Committee I’d seen for years.
“She was very intelligent, very capable, very thoughtful, very measured. She wouldn’t come in like a lot of TDs, roaring and balling for the first half hour, and out the door when the camera’s gone.
“She’d sit for the full meeting, be it two hours or two and a half. She was normally the last person. She listened to what everybody had said beforehand, and then she came with very good questions.
“So I will say, as a member of the Public Accounts, and as a politician, she was excellent, and I hope she’ll be… and I know she’ll be excellent as a President of Ireland. So I just say I had a good personal relationship with Catherine Connolly for a number of years.”
You can listen to the episode in full below.
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