No resurrection for Fianna Fáil without restructuring

Surveying the political wreckage that is Fianna Fáil, Clare constituency organiser Michael Neylon believes that if the party is to resurrect itself from the ashes it needs to “rebuild and restructure”.
While its Clare vote plummeted by 20.2% from 42.3% in 2007 to an all-time low of 22.1%, Mr Neylon warned that Fianna Fáil “is going nowhere without change” and that the party hierarchy has to reconnect with the grassroots membership.
“What this election has told us is that the political landscape is changing. Historically, Clare was a Fianna Fáil stronghold but I suppose it can no longer be considered Dev’s country.
“In 2007, we were in contention for three seats, in this election we’d have to be happy with the one seat when you look at the national trend. The performance of the party nationwide wasn’t unexpected, it was a backlash to a poor performance in government,” he acknowledged.
Mr Neylon felt that the pummelling in the polls was justified, given the state of the economy.
“We were bored stiff listening to the criticism of the Government and their performance in office. That’s all we have heard of morning, noon and night since 2008. That has come home to haunt us.
“A wise old fishermen once said that a fish rots from the head. That’s the situation we find ourselves in. It’s a question of rebuilding. We have only to go back to 2002, when Fine Gael were on their knees and here they are today top of the ladder, close to an overall majority.
“After 2002 they sat down and slowly but surely rebuilt the party. Enda Kenny built it up using young, energetic people and I believe that is going to be the secret for Fianna Fáil if it is to be resurrected from the gutter. We have to get young, energetic people in all aspects of our political structures,” he maintained.
Mr Neylon said there was anger in the electorate but that what was said at the doors wasn’t a criticism of the Fianna Fáil organisation at local level but rather a criticism of those in government.
“I know we are the base of the organisation and the influence and the connection between grassroots and those at a higher level. There is a perception that the Government is made up of 15 people and they have become totally disjointed from the grassroots from an organisational context.
“That criticism was there in the local elections in 2009. We were critical of the selection process of local candidates in that it isolated and removed cumainn from their rightful and democratic right to select people in their areas to represent the party at local government.
“The cumainn didn’t come out to support us in great numbers is 2009 and they haven’t come out in great numbers to support us this time either. In that way, the candidates we selected had to carry out an individual canvass rather than a party canvass. That has been a difficulty for us.
“You don’t want to be selecting independent candidates running on a party ticket. You need to get the entire party behind your two candidates, whatever the feeling of the people.  If they had a democratic right to select two candidates at convention, then they should have gone out and supported those two candidates equally,” he suggested.
Mr Neylon said that the decision to go with a two-candidate strategy was always going to impact on their ability to secure transfers, which hindered their prospects of holding onto their two seats.
“Personally, I would have liked a third candidate. A young, energetic female candidate is what I would have liked. But the way things have gone now; it is very difficult to get people who will go for public office, particularly in the current climate.
“It is difficult to persuade people who are in secure, responsible positions to leave those positions for the insecurity of politics. It’s not something Fianna Fáil faces in isolation. It’s difficult to get people of quality and integrity into politics,” he argued.
The party’s director of elections in Clare admitted that the people have had their say and for Fianna Fáil, the outcome will lead to a lot of soul searching and inquisitions.
“You may be facing a situation where you may have a realignment of politics, where you are going to have a left and a right. But for us, the Fianna Fáil party, if we don’t change, we are going nowhere,” he declared.