McCartin makes right call on Dáil seat

The decision of Leitrim councillor John McCartin not to seek a nomination for Fine Gael in the forthcoming general election is a welcome development in the ongoing saga of how to deal with the fallout of the Quinn Group.

Given the serious accusations that have been made against members of Seán Quinn’s family in the so-called conspiracy case, any suggestion that talk of a deal was mixed up with the political interests of the Government parties was something to be avoided. (The conspiracy case, for those who have forgotten, involves the extraordinary accusation, which is in part accepted by some of the defendants, that they sought to put property worth hundreds of millions of euro beyond the reach of a state-owned entity that had a legal charge over them.)

But the wisdom of the move doesn’t mean it was an easy decision for McCartin. His political star is very much in the ascendant along the Border since he played a key role in the return to local control of the Quinn construction supply and Quinn packaging businesses, which will no doubt provide economic stability for the border regions for quite some time to come. It is little wonder that he was elected cathaoirleach of Leitrim County Council during the summer.

The chances of his getting a seat for Fine Gael in the next Dáil were also increased by constituency changes that favoured him, so it must have been all the more difficult for him to make the decision he did.

His reasoning is that if he was to be elected a TD, that role would not be compatible with his work dealing with the fallout from the Quinn Group collapse. That’s surely true. In particular, his role in trying to get a deal whereby the conspiracy case against the family would be dropped in circumstances where the family would drop its massive, multi-billion claim for damages against the State, would invite speculation about Government calculations where political advantage was set against ethical standards in a situation involving hundreds of millions of euro of public property, and extremely serious allegations.

McCartin told the local party organisation that it was with a heavy heart that he decided not to throw his hat in the ring. Meanwhile, he appears to continue to hope for a deal between the two sides and a settlement of the two High Court cases that could between them last a year or more. The Quinn Group collapse has since the start involved high stakes and interesting personal stories along the way.