*Tony Killeen. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
FORMER CLARE FIANNA FÁIL TDs, Tony Killeen and Brendan Daly are among the political figures whose advice is most sought by the party’s only current TD from the county.
During the early days of his political career, Cathal Crowe TD (FF) was closely aligned with Limerick TD, Willie O’Dea (FF) who recruited him to the party, their relationship is still strong but the Clare TD admitted he is longer a mentor.
He stated, “When I was a councillor it was just down to the geography of the county but the whole of South Clare 8000 people, the heartland area that I represented was in the Limerick constituency at the time much to my frustration because I always wanted it to be in Clare, however the reality of the situation was it was in the Limerick East constituency and Willie O’Dea was the local TD for Fianna Fáil, he was involved in recruiting me, I was one of his canvassers and worked closely with him for many years, I’m glad these days I’m on an equal footing with him, I wouldn’t consider him a mentor anymore, he is a colleague”.
Clare’s TDs that last served at the Cabinet table, Daly who over a ten year period was Minister for Fisheries, Forestry, the Marine, Defence and Social Welfare and Killeen who was Minister for Defence from March 2010 to January 2011 are among those who the Meelick native now turns to for counsel.
“There are many politicians I still turn to for advice, Tony Killeen and Brendan Daly have been fantastic to me, Willie O’Dea continues to be a really close friend of mine, there are other colleagues particularly the new TDs that have came in that I get along great with. It’s no different to when I was teaching, I would have seen teachers with decades of experience often having to sound out a colleague looking for advice, it’s the same in politics, we’ve many WhatsApp groups with politicians and we often chew over issues on lunch breaks and see how we can resolve it better,” he told The Clare Echo.
Mention of teaching leads the former primary school teacher to praise the work of Minister for Education, Norma Foley (FF). “I knew Norma Foley a little bit before entering the Dáil, I get on great with her and consider her a friend, I think she is doing fantastic and is probably one of our better Ministers at the moment, I’ve gone to her with umpteen school issues and she has resolved all of them. I’ve started holding school clinics, I usually hold them on Zoom because it’s easier for school principals during the working day, I meet with a lot of schools, I go to a lot of classrooms in the county and I make it my business to meet with Norma Foley once a week and bring those issues to her attention. I’ve recently moved over to the Oireachtas Education Committee and I’m really loving that role, I believe passionately in education, Norma Foley does too and I’m glad to say Micheál Martin repeatedly has said over the years it’s his number one raison d’etre”.
