This article is from page 15 of the 2007-05-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
MICHAEL McDowell’s decision to retire from the political scene last Friday has been greeted with sadness by the party faithful in Clare.
The Progressive Democrat’s candi- date in Clare for last week’s general election, Murt Collins paid tribute to the former Tanaiste.
“TI think that the people have let us down. I think that they have made the worst mistake of all with the Minis- ter for Justice, Michael McDowell. He was one of the best ministers for justice that we have ever had. He took on the IRA, he reduced overtime in certain state bodies, and what did he get from it?” said Mr Collins.
“We took a hammering but it was a bad day for all small parties. It was bad for us but it was bad for the coun- try. The PDs were keeping Fianna Fail on the straight and narrow.
“They drove the economy and tax reform. We have all the tribunals out
of the PDs, we’d never know what was going on in the country if it hadn’t been for the PDs.”
The Kilrush general election candi- date also blamed Fianna Fail’s reac-
tion to Michael McDowell’s handling of leaks from the Mahon Tribunal as one of the main factors in the PD’s disastrous election campaign.
“This 1s my opinion, it was all about McDowell’s statement there a couple weeks ago about Bertie. What happened then is that Fianna Fail de- cided not to cross vote. It was very obvious there in Limerick when Wil- lie O’Dea got a huge vote and Tim O’Malley didn’t get the transfer. I think McDowell got Fianna Fail’s backs up a small bit,” he said.
“Whatever happened in the last week there was a whole swing to the big parties. Having the vote on the Thursday didn’t suit some of the smaller parties because they are depending on youth. In the last few days, the bigger parties pulled out all the stops and brought out all the voters.”