TD'S DECISION:FIANNA FÁIL Galway East TD Noel Treacy has said he is medically unfit to contest the upcoming general election, despite having been nominated to run.
The former minister of state was first elected to the Dáil in 1982, making him the last Government party candidate to win a byelection.
Mr Treacy said it would be unfair to the Fianna Fáil party and his constituents to contest when he could not actively participate in the campaign on a daily basis.
“I do this with a great sense of regret and reluctance as all of the expectations were that the general election would not happen before 2012. I was looking forward to being fully fit by then,” Mr Treacy said.
He said he underwent surgery last summer and commenced treatment earlier this month, and his medical team had advised him he could not fight a campaign during the treatment.
Dublin North West TD Noel Ahern and Cork East deputy Ned O’Keeffe also announced on Monday night that they would step down.
Mr Treacy, Mr Ahern and Mr O’Keeffe will all retire on a TD’s pension of just under €50,000, and a pension lump sum of approximately €160,000 plus an additional annual amount for chairmanships of committees, along with a series of termination payments and a termination lump sum.
All three are also entitled to minister of state’s pensions.
Mr Ahern, first elected in 1992, yesterday revealed he had been waiting to see if Pat Carey would step aside before he made his decision not to contest the election.
Mr Ahern said he would have liked to run again, but there was no hope of two Fianna Fáil TDs being returned in the constituency.
“There’s a growing realisation certainly in urban areas and particularly in three-seaters or four-seat areas that the best strategy now of holding on to Fianna Fáil seats is to run one candidate. I’ve been reflecting on it for some weeks. Maybe I was half waiting for my colleague Pat Carey, thinking he would blink and step out but no, I’ve done so,” he told the News at One on RTÉ Radio One.
Mr O’Keeffe, first elected in 1982, reiterated his warning that Fianna Fáil could end up with as few as 12 seats in the next Dáil. Mr O’Keeffe’s son Kevin, a Cork county councillor, was selected along with sitting TD Michael Ahern on Monday night.
“Cork East was always a tough constituency, you always had to work very hard here, you were always on the margin to hold your seat, it’s a four seat but we never got three out of four here – it’s always difficult – we’re in trouble here. I think it will be 2:2 for the Opposition,” he said.
Mr O’Keeffe said he blamed Fianna Fáil’s slump in the polls on the party losing touch with its grassroots and its handling of the economic and financial crisis. “There’s no point in trying to deny the fact of life that we did make a dog’s dinner of the whole thing in the financial area and it’s the worst performance I’ve seen in my life – we set up Nama and we brought in the IMF – they were all things we didn’t have to do.”