FIANNA FÁIL’s John McGuinness, one of the party’s few TDs to retain his seat in the last election, was critical of an “insider-outsider experience” which he claimed developed in the party when Brian Cowen was taoiseach.
Interviewed for the second part of TV3's series The Rise and Fall of Fianna Fáil, Mr McGuinness said that drinking friends of the former taoiseach had his ear and would inform him of goings-on in the parliamentary party.
“An insider-outsider experience began to creep into the party and those that were outside that set were very definitely outside it. I think it influenced Brian Cowen far more than was good for the process. The parliamentary party, I felt, became sidelined on a lot of the bigger issues. Some members, myself included, wanted the party to be central to everything.”
Former chief whip Tom Kitt said Mr Cowen was entitled to have a drink with friends. “My only criticism of that is that perhaps there was a sense within the party that this was an exclusive group.” The programme will be broadcast at 10pm next Monday.
Bertie Ahern was wrong to anoint Mr Cowen as his successor as leader of Fianna Fáil, according to Mr Ahern’s former partner, Celia Larkin. Ms Larkin told the programme it was the business of the party to decide who to elect as leader, not the outgoing leader.
“People don’t like to let go of power and it’s a way of carrying on your control in some way,” she said.
Asked on the programme about Mr Ahern, former minister of state Seán Haughey said the leader of the party and the country had to be “a bit ruthless”. He added: “You wondered – not necessarily in my case – if he was being particularly nice to you upfront, you wondered was there also a dagger being stuck in the back.”
