*Tánaiste Simon Harris (FG) is welcomed to Ennis by ex TD Pat Breen (FG) and Cllr Mary Howard (FG).
FINE GAEL is forgetting its roots and needs to remember its place as a centre-right party according to local members.
Tánaiste Simon Harris (FG) has yet to win an election since becoming party leader in April 2024 while Fine Gael have never won a Presidential election.
There is no ‘Harris Heave’ led by local members in Clare but they are of the view that Fine Gael has lost touch with the grassroots and is too heavily influenced by its headquarters in Mount Street.
Despite the national media focusing on a ‘Harris Hop’ after he became leader, Fine Gael lost ten seats in the 2024 local elections even though the party gained a councillor in Clare. For the General Election held last November, Fine Gael won thirty eight seats in the Dáil, an increase of three.
Bunratty based farmer, Joe Melody (FG) who is viewed as a potential Oireachtas candidate for the future be it a General or Seanad election felt the party needed to look at a new leader. “Conversations need to be had if Simon Harris is the right person to lead Fine Gael back into the centre right, he probably hasn’t demonstrated that he can do that so owing to that do we need more substance as a leader”.
Harris should reflect on his position, Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) maintained. “When Simon Harris became leader he hit the ground running and was doing very well but it is a totally different situation in view of what has happened and I’d have to think about it. Nobody knows better than Simon Harris what the next move is and what Fine Gael need to do to get back to where we were”. He added, “Looking to the future, the party needs to get back to what it stands for, centre-right as it has moved too much to the left”.
According to Cllr Pat Burke (FG), Harris “should absolutely” remain as party leader. Though Fine Gael have been in Government since 2011, he was critical of Fianna Fáil’s inability to deal with the housing portfolio which they have held since 2020. “We see Micheál Martin is under an awful lot of pressure from some of his parliamentary party which is all down to non-delivery of housing. Any of us with children in their twenties or thirties have no hope of getting a house unless they get married and have two incomes because the Government are so slow to do anything about housing, Simon H doesn’t need to step down because of the Presidential Election but the Government need to act to show people they are working on housing, it moves so slow. I wouldn’t be for shifting Simon Harris at all, the permanent Government runs the country so does it really matter who is at the top, Micheál Martin is more unpopular with his party than Simon Harris”.
Confidence in the leader was also voiced by Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG). “He took on the role and had a lot of energy in the early days, uneasy is the head which sits the crown, it is the part of the responsivity that you’ll be in the eye of the storm, he is doing a good job”. He felt Harris’ role as Minister for Foreign Affairs means the leader is “not as visible in the country as you might want a leader to be albeit he is doing a very important job but there is a miss there, there is a high percentage of first time TDs in the Dáil, I’ll exempt Joe Cooney for the impact he is making but it takes a while for those new TDs to bed in. It is not one factor, it is multiple in those circumstances, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on the mainstream side have lost connection with the frontline, the ground and youth, that is maybe as a result of being in power and having a focus on taking decisions, the focus hasn’t been on being out there, the structure on the ground which were clearly on the ground and served parties well, people are getting on, older people who were mainstay are moving, there hasn’t been enough focus on renewing”.
No discontent over the leadership is emanating locally, Cllr Mary Howard (FG) said. “I’ve absolutely no problem with Simon. It hasn’t come to me that anybody wants him to step back, I wouldn’t be thinking at this stage that there needs to be change”.
Procedure used in selecting the Presidential candidate was not decided by the Tánaiste, Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) flagged. “I don’t have an issue with Simon Harris, he didn’t create the procedure used, he is okay for the time being, we fielded a strong candidate with 20% plus of the vote, Fine Gael stuck to their word of fielding a candidate in the election which they said they would do, Heather Humphreys held the Fine Gael vote but didn’t attract the floating voter”.
Party members had no say when it came to Harris becoming leader last year and over they were also deprived of having an input into choosing the Fine Gael candidate for the Presidential election after Mairead McGuinness (FG) withdrew in August. Elected members in Clare are of the view that this needs to be changed.
Those on the grassroots tend to have better judgement, Cllr Keating maintained. “The ordinary members of the Fine Gael party and the councillors should have had a say in the selection of candidates. I also believe there should have been a contest as members and councillors are closer to the grassroots than the parliamentary party and should be listened to as they show better judgement in the candidates being selected in a fair and democratic way, rather than being endorsed by the parliamentary party”. He said he would have backed Seán Kelly MEP (FG) in a contest if given the choice.
Members will question why they pay their party membership if they continued to be excluded, Cllr Murphy commented. He said a contest between Kelly and Humphreys would have also kept Fine Gael as ‘headline news’ for a fortnight in August. “This is no slight on Heather Humphreys but it started to go wrong when Mairead McGuinness had to pull out, I’m not saying she would have won but she was going well in the polls, that was a blow. We had a choice between Seán Kelly and Heather Humphreys, I would have been firmly in the Seán Kelly camp, we have a procedure or a way to select candidates in Fine Gael, I find it hard to stomach the way it was done, there was no underhand tactics but it is time Fine Gael look at one member one vote, I don’t like the way it was done where the parliamentary can swing it for whoever they want, what is the point in the grassroots paying their membership if they have no say. The Tánaiste and the party headquarters in Mount Street need to look at this”.
“A perfect storm of some unfortunate events coupled by the fact there was only two people in the race meant it was always going to be very difficult for someone like Heather Humphreys,” analysed Cllr Garrihy of the outcome. “A lot of debate and focus went on things that didn’t go well or should have been better in Government. The lack of support came as kick to Government and the establishment which are two different things,” he added. “There is an anger and frustration from centre-ground people who felt the role was not given the focus and attention it deserves, people reacted against that as well, they may have otherwise supported centre-ground or Heather Humphreys. I don’t know has there been a Minister who delivered as much for communities in Clare on the ground when she was a Minister, I certainly highlighted that but that seemed to get lost in all the other negative and series of unfortunate events”.
Fine Gael must learn to be better prepared for elections, Cllr Howard felt, pointing out there was no Plan B following McGuinness’ withdrawal. “We’re members of a party, all party members should have their voice heard. The reality is we know we’ll have a Presidential election every seven years, just like I know I’ll have my local election every five years whereas a General Election can happen at any time. They could have put candidates out before us at the Ard Fhéis a year and a half ago and let them do a caucus. This is a diplomatic position and the highest office in the land, more consideration from everybody as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction which happened, it should be one member one vote to decide the candidate”.
On the change in approach needed by Fine Gael, Melody outlined, “We’ve an over-regulated economy, we’ve VAT on new-builds on housing which is more of a prevention than an intervention, the grants for first-time builders and the incentives for new homeowners if you didn’t have the VAT on new-builds, the nature of this it is interventions on top of interventions, it is more to socialise a programme for incentivising housing, that is just an example of where Fine Gael need to change their approach and move away from listening to left-wing NGOs on policy”.
