Meaney quits Greens to join Fianna Fáil

COUNCILLOR Brian Meaney has applied for membership of Fianna Fáil in Clare, after dramatically ending his 20-year association with the Green Party.

 

As one of the co-founders of the Green Party, Councillor Meaney has been their Clare standard bearer in four general elections and three local elections over the last two decades.

However, Councillor Meaney has confirmed he has not renewed his Green Party membership and will not be standing for re-election as a Green councillor before the May 2014 Local Elections.

Instead, he hopes to run as a Fianna Fáil councillor if his application is accepted, even though he acknowledged some of his constituents who voted for him may feel “betrayed”.

The 47-year-old father-of-two said irreconcilable differences with the party leadership over a number of major policy issues, particularly rural development, has forced him to quit.

“I leave the Green Party with a very heavy heart. There are very good people in the Greens, who joined for the right reasons. I am no longer able to remain in the party because my views on rural development in a rural county like Clare are totally at odds with the party.

“This is an extremely difficult decision, as I have to consider that some of the people who voted for me may feel betrayed.

“I am still proud of the Green Party and the number of policies they introduced in the last Government. Events like the economic crash overtook the small achievements that were made in Government.”

If the Green Party’s planning policies were implemented years before they went into Government, he claimed the property collapse wouldn’t have been as pronounced.

While Councillor Meaney acknowledged it would have been more politically advantageous to have declared as an independent before the 2009 Local Elections, when he was re-elected and particularly before his unsuccessful bid at the 2011 General Election, he said he wouldn’t be happy as an independent.

Having joined the Green Party in 1993, he established the party in Clare with other environmental activists, who are no longer politically active.

“My preference is to stand for a party, if I am accepted. I am not arrogant to think I can leave the Greens and walk into any political party and be accepted with open arms. I am the same Brian Meaney. My opinions and values haven’t changed. My father was a card-carrying member of Fianna Fáil. It was a different Fianna Fáil of Sean Lemass and Donough O’Malley

“Donough O’Malley was my political hero. Against the establishment, he brought in free second-level education, which I availed of and, as a consequence, I was able to go to third-level education,” he said.

Asked if he saw a major difficulty in joining Fianna Fáil, which he had severely criticised before the Greens joined them in Government, he claimed the Soldiers of Destiny were a completely different party to the one when he first got involved in politics.

“Fianna Fáil are a different party now after the last General Election. I see a more humble party that are now open to wide and varied ideas,” he said.