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HUMILITY IS SOMETHING this government needs more of, according Fergus O’Dowd, a Louth TD who after nearly five decades is due to depart from Irish politics.
The veteran politician, who has served as a councillor, a senator, a TD and a minister of state over the last 50 years sat down with The Journal before Christmas to discuss the need to tackle crime, how dealing with the housing crisis has been a “learning curve” for Fine Gael, the delayed Covid inquiry and what it is like to come from a family made up of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and now Aontú members.
O’Dowd is known in Leinster House for not being afraid of being an internal critic of his own party at times, so he didn’t hold back in terms of offering his tuppence on the government’s performance to date and where his party needs to improve.
“Humility is one we need to learn a bit more, I think. We need to reach out to poorer people more,” O’Dowd said while discussing the current coalition.
He predicts the current government, made up of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party could return after the next election.
“I would like to see them re-elected to government because I think they’re doing the job there… they’ve got the skills to manage the economy. I think they’ve learned a lot of lessons,” he said.
However, there are issues O’Dowd says need attention:
“There are many estates in our country that at night time it is the thugs that take over. That’s reality. Decent people are inside with their doors locked. That shouldn’t be the way it is. You know, they’re the things we have to do. So, the physical environment of working-class estates, the lighting, the footpaths, the community facilities,” he said.
There is a “need to be tough on criminals” but on top of that, there is a need for increased investment in organisations that support those involved in drugs, supports for the unemployed, as well as supports for Deis schools and disadvantaged areas, he said.
“I think that’s key,” said the deputy, stating that young people must be given the opportunities to succeed.
Sports centres should be located in all disadvantaged areas, said O’Dowd, noting that his grandchildren live in London where there are lots of facilities for young people.
“We’re not anywhere near that,” he said
With safety and security issues coming into sharp focus after the Dublin riot last month, Fine Gael, which prides itself as being the party of ‘law and order’, is coming under pressure.
Representing a region which found itself in the middle of one of the bloodiest gangland feuds of recent years, O’Dowd knows all too well the impact crime can have on an area.
The Drogheda feud began in the summer of 2018 after a failed murder attempt on Owen Maguire and culminated in the killing of teenager Keane Mulready-Woods, whose body was discarded at various locations in Louth and north Dublin.
Thinking back to those years, O’Dowd remembers the murder of Mulready-Woods.
“He was only a child … it was really sad, really awful,” he said.
A task force was set up to stamp out gangland crime in the area. O’Dowd said 30 additional gardaí were sent to Drogheda, with 16 community gardaí being put in place at the time.
“Now unfortunately that number a couple of months ago had dropped to eight,” he said, stating that a number gardaí retired and community gardaí were taken off that work.
“So I think that’s a huge problem. Community gardaí are key to the battle against crime because they know the people, they are part of the community, they walk it every day, their friendly, approachable, it’s a different method of policing.”
Along with additional garda numbers, pumping investment into Drogheda support and outreach services was instrumental to solving the drug and gangland problem, he said.
In terms of housing and how that is being dealt with, O’Dowd said:
“It has been a learning curve for Fine Gael, well for some people, not for everybody. Some of us have been arguing for a long time.
“I’ve been arguing for an empty homes tax for years, I have been campaigning for that within the party for some years now. And I mean, the party is now well aware of what it didn’t do. And it is addressing that.”
While he said he didn’t want to give “the mantra” on the number of houses under construction, he noted that in his county alone, there is planning permission for 8,000 houses to be built, with around 4,000 under construction, describing it as “huge”.
However, O’Dowd said there is a big issue regarding local authorities not having the power to drive forward with plans, stating such powers were removed under his own party in government.
While others in Leinster House have described how former Fine Gael Minister and EU Commissioner Phil Hogan “took a hatchet” to local government when choosing to abolish town councils in 2014, O’Dowd states that the decision has resulted in local governments not having the power to decide their own future.
“Because of Phil Hogan, indeed our government at the time, we don’t have proper councils, we don’t have the control of our local government in our area,” he said, stating it is particularly an acute problem for Drogheda, the biggest town in Ireland.
O’Dowd said he plans to table a bill in the new year, that if passed, would see Drogheda classed a city.
“I think local government reform is critical,” he said, adding there should be “constructive tension” between the administration and the local councillors.
“That’s how you get change.”
The Louth deputy has been particularly vocal on the treatment of older people during the pandemic. Speaking in the Dáil last year, he called for a full inquiry to be held into the care of older people in nursing homes during the pandemic.
During a Dáil debate, he spoke about how his brother-in-law passed away of Covid in a nursing home in 2021.
While he said some people were looked after very well in nursing homes around the country during that time, many other older people were not.
“Age counts and old age matters, and people who were dying in nursing homes were not properly looked after,” said O’Dowd in the Dáil.
The TD has continuously raised the case of Dealgan House in Dundalk town which provides 24-hour nursing care to around 80 adult residents.
A report in October 2020 found that there were staffing and Covid training issues at the Louth nursing home where over 20 patients died in April 2020.
The inspection report carried out by the the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) highlighted several concerns about the standards and regulations adhered to at the nursing home.
O’Dowd criticised the government for not holding its Covid inquiry sooner.
Leo Varadkar indicated this month that the terms of reference are ready to go and the inquiry will be set up in the new year.
“The government hasn’t announced its inquiry. I’m very critical of that. Obviously. It’s now long delayed. It was promised to us last summer at the latest,” he said.
He noted that the Taoiseach said recently that there may be a difficulty getting people to sit on the inquiry team.
“Obviously, I take that at face value, but I just see no reason why we can’t put together a team of experts, you don’t need experts to ask questions. I could ask a lot myself,” he said, adding that the review is not about “hanging people out to dry”.
“It is the who, what, where, why? How do we make sure doesn’t happen again?” he said, stating that the Ireland experienced the same issues as in the UK.
“Putting people into nursing homes from acute hospitals, the blanket ban on visitation – it was obviously meant constructively at the time, but it separated families, left people who are dying without friends and family,” he said.
“I would say they [older people] felt they were being mollycoddled. To be very honest with you, when the embargo on exiting your home came out, I was actually 70 years of age. So I didn’t actually go out because I was a TD at that time, because I felt if I did… I took on board what they said,” he added.
O’Dowd said other older people were out cycling and walking, “all having a great time, with me looking out the window at them, so I think there’s lots of lessons learned from that”.
“I think the politicians should be held accountable for decisions they make, but it’s not a ‘hang them and flog them’ accountability,” he said.
“There are certain nursing homes where people died and there are very, very serious questions around the reasons around their death, the quality of care, there are huge issues, and they need to be investigated and people need to be held accountable in my view for that,” he added.
With his announcement this month that he will not be seeking re-election, O’Dowd has become the latest of several Fine Gael TDs who have announced they will not be contesting the next election.
Much has been commented on as to what this all means for Leo Varadkar’s leadership of the party during a time of what appears to be a mass exodus.
O’Dowd says he has loved his time in politics, but at the age of 75, if he ran in the next election, he would be heading into his 80s.
“I’d say Leo is going to be the leader at the next general election. And after that election, the rules of Fine Gael, whoever the leader is, if they’re not in power, they must stand for election again. So that’s an issue down the road for every leader.
“That happened with Michael Noonan, that happened with Enda Kenny, you know, it will happen with Leo, it will happen with everybody. And that’s a good thing. That’s healthy democracy.
While O’Dowd is stepping back from politics, his brother, Michael, who is a former mayor of Drogheda, is now a member of Aontú.
O’Dowd has another brother, Niall O’Dowd, who is the publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper and founder of IrishCentral.com.
“We come from a diverse family. My father would have been a traditional Republican, non-violent, he wouldn’t agree with killing anybody, but he would have been of that Republican wing probably of Fianna Fáil. My mother would have been Fine Gael. I have a brother in America. I have a sister that was a member of the Fianna Fáil party. I have a sister that is a member of Fine Gael, like myself,” he said, stating that the family is “diverse, but that’s healthy”.
Does it make for heated discussions around the table at Christmas? O’Dowd said he has different perspectives to his siblings on a lot of matters, stating that his brother Michael is a deeply religious person.
“He would be very much against abortion. He would have been a member of Lucinda Creighton’s party at one stage [Renua]… It is a legitimate view, I respect that view, I don’t agree with it, but I respect it.
“There’s been a lot of intolerance about people with that view and I respect them, I absolutely respect them,” he said, adding that a number of his older family members grew up belonged to religious orders.
“So we had all that conflict between religion and politics and a modernising Ireland.”
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