Rebel Walsh vows for fight for seat despite Seanad shock

Banished Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh is now relishing the challenge of running as an independent candidate in Galway West, he has confirmed to The Connacht Tribune.

While he still considers himself a Fine Gael TD, he said that he now has to accept that he will not be a party candidate in the aftermath of Hildegarde Naughton’s appointment to the Senate.

“I still consider myself to be a member of Fine Gael and it would be my preference to run for the party at the next general election but I accept that this is unlikely to be the case”, Deputy Walsh said.

He added that running as an independent candidate would be a fresh political challenge for him and one that he would be working on over the next couple of years.

Senator Naughton will shortly be told that she will be the Galway City and Oranmore candidate for the party at the next general election.

Her appointment to the Seanad coincides with both Deputy Walsh and Senator Fidelma Healy Eames being expelled from the party and is viewed as punishment for them in voting against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

And the appointment has effectively put paid to any prospect of Walsh and Healy Eames being taken back by the party and will have to tread the lonely and very costly road of running as independent candidates if they want to retain their Oireachtas seats.

Party sources have said that Taoiseach Enda Kenny was particularly livid at Deputy Walsh over his stance on the abortion issue and was said to have been very disappointed as the Galway West TD was being considered for a junior minister in a future reshuffle.

As far as Senator Healy Eames is concerned, she would have faced an uphill battle to get on the FG ticket in any event. But many grassroots Fine Gael members are surprised that she decided to follow Deputy Walsh in opposing the bill.

Strategists feel that she should have used Deputy Walsh’s expulsion from the party to her advantage by trying to convince the party hierarchy that she was an obvious Fine Gael candidate having come so close to winning a seat last time out.

But now she has been consigned to the independent benches in the Seanad with a lot of uncertainty hanging over her political future.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.