SOUTH DUBLIN Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan has said he will not be seeking his party’s nomination for the next general election.
Political parties have already begun the process of selecting candidates for the next general election, officially due in 2012.
The Senator had been widely tipped to secure a nomination and a seat for the party in Dún Laoghaire, South Dublin.
A senior counsel, he is the Fine Gael Seanad spokesman on justice, equality and law reform. Previously the Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, he was elected councillor to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in 2004.
In the 2007 general election, the Senator was the youngest of his party’s candidates for the Dáil. He ran for Fine Gael alongside former minister for defence Seán Barrett and fellow councillor John Bailey.
His nomination was endorsed by former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and former party leader Alan Dukes, but internal tensions between the two councillors resulted in a contentious campaign.
Both men garnered more than 4,000 first preference votes, but Fine Gael took only one seat in the constituency. Mr Regan secured a seat in the Seanad in July 2007, on the agricultural panel.
He has been outspoken on many issues, among them the financial affairs of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Before Mr Ahern’s resignation in 2008, Mr Regan had accused him of misleading the public and Dáil about his tax affairs in 2006 and of trying to discredit and undermine the work of the Mahon tribunal.
Ahead of the resignation of former minister for defence Willie O’Dea in February, Mr Regan accused him of perjury in the Seanad.
Mr O’Dea resigned after he made allegations against a Sinn Féin local election candidate in Limerick to a journalist and then swore on affidavit that he had not made the allegations.
Mr Regan told The Irish Times that he had written to approximately 600 members of his local constituency to inform them he would not be seeking the nomination.
His decision was made for personal reasons.
He would have been up for the fight, he added, but now felt he would not be able to give a campaign the focus it would require.
