Politics

Independent TD Healy Rae rules out joining alliance

Public ‘sick of hearing’ of political parties refusing to go into government together

“The one difference between us and the political parties is that when we get up in the morning, we’re heading out the same gap, whereas in political parties, they’re watching each other and there’s more infighting,” Michael Healy Ray said on The Late Late Show. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times
“The one difference between us and the political parties is that when we get up in the morning, we’re heading out the same gap, whereas in political parties, they’re watching each other and there’s more infighting,” Michael Healy Ray said on The Late Late Show. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times
Aine McMahon
Fri Jan 16 2015 - 23:59

Independent TD for South Kerry Michael Healy Rae has ruled out joining any political party or alliance.

Speaking on the Late Late show on Friday night he said: “What would I want to be at joining a party?”

Mr Healy Rae said he and his nephew and brother, who are both members of Kerry County Council, work together in their own “political team”.

His father, former Independent TD for Kerry Jackie Healy-Rae, died last year.

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He was a Fianna Fáil member of Kerry County Council for decades, but broke with the party in 1997 when he failed to get a nomination to contest the general election in the Kerry South constituency.

He won a seat as an Independent and held it until 2011, when he made way for Michael, who was elected to replace him.

“The one difference between us and the political parties is that when we get up in the morning, we’re heading out the same gap, whereas in political parties, they’re watching each other and there’s more infighting,” he said.

Mr Healy Rae said the public “are sick of hearing” about political parties refusing to go into government together.

“Fianna Fáil won’t get into bed or do business with Fine Gael. Sinn Féin won’t go with Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil won’t go with Sinn Féin. Lucinda [Creighton] won’t go with anybody. What are they doing?” he said.

Mr Healy Rae said the Government have neglected rural Ireland and several hundred rural post offices are under threat.

“What are the Government going to proactively do to protect our post offices. If we lose our post offices, that’s it. We’ve already lost the small shops, the small pubs; this is another thing they’re failing in.

“They closed our Garda stations. I proved on the record in the Dáil, that every Garda station that was closed, it was costing more to keep them closed than it would have cost to keep them open. Rural crime is on the increase because of closing Garda stations. It was a stupid decision at the time,” he said.

It cost the Government more to pay security and maintenance firms to keep the Garda stations closed than to keep them open, he claimed.