LAST UPDATE | 28 Oct 2018
FIANNA FÁIL TD Niall Collins has said that Peter Casey should “realise that you can’t just rock up to political parties and think that you can get your way”.
Casey had earlier told the Sunday Independent that he will be “joining Fianna Fáil” and that he intends to run in the next general election in Donegal.
“I am becoming a Fianna Fáil TD with a view to becoming Taoiseach, as the head of a renewed and revitalised Fianna Fáil,” he said.
He said that he believes that party has “lost it way” in recent years, adding:
“I want to be the one that leads Fianna Fáil back to its natural home as the party of the people, to get it back on track and get the party listening again to the real people, to get outside of the bubble of Dublin and Leinster House and the political and media establishment.”
Michael D Higgins was last night re-elected as President of Ireland, with a landslide vote of over 58%.
Casey secured 23.3% of the vote, landing himself in second place.
Speaking to RTÉ One’s The Week in Politics, Collins said that “there’s bad news” for Casey as Fianna Fáil’s ticket in Donegal “is complete”.
“We have Charlie McConalogue and Pat The Cope Gallagher as our two sitting TDs there,” he said.
Peter would want to realise that you can’t just rock up to political parties and think that you can get your way. That’s not how it works.
Collins went on to add that “personally, I wouldn’t like to see Peter Casey join Fianna Fáil”.
Elsewhere Timmy Dooley, another senior TD and the party’s communications spokesperson, simply tweeted “Ah we’re ok thanks” in response to a news story about Casey’s comments.
Casey sustained criticism for a series of comments about the Traveller community, across a variety of media appearances, during his presidential campaign.
“There’s no place for blanket prejudice within Fianna Fáil,” Collins said today.
Speaking to reporters at Dublin Castle last night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar laughed at the suggestion that Casey might join Fine Gael, stating that he thought it was “decidedly unlikely”.
While anyone is welcome to join Fine Gael, he said they must sign up to the “values of the party”.
- With reporting by Daragh Brophy
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