The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
ON the brink of General Election 2016 polling day, a former Clare TD has revealed how Fianna Fáil paid a heavy price for a wrong call on fixing a date for the 2011 election. Fianna Fáil election strategists cost the party up to 30 additional seats over the timing of the 2011 General Election, former Defence Minister Tony Killeen has claimed. In an interview during a Clare Champion-hosted General Election 2016 discussion, Mr Killeen laid bare for the first time the main factors that led to the dramatic meltdown for Fianna Fáil, which went from 78 to just 20 Dáil seats in the last election. Mr Killeen, who had been principal at Kilnaboy National School prior to entering politics, also revealed he would be dead if he had contested a snap election in December 2010, instead of February 25, 2011, as he was battling cancer at the time. Mr Killeen announced his retirement from politics on health grounds ahead of …
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