Tipperary councillor Andy Moloney is the type of politician that Fianna Fail needs back, says Smith

Fianna Fail councillor Michael Smith has identified Cahir's Andy Moloney as a local politician that the party needs to get back into the fold.

The Roscrea councillor said Fianna Fail cannot be happy with a one seat per constituency outcome at election time and had to built up its grassroots support again.

Cllr Smith said that Fianna Fail should concentrate on winning back people who  had left the party, especially those 'hurt badly by the financial crisis and disillusioned with politics and others whose votes were transferred to another constituency at the stroke of a pen.'

He cited Cllr  Andy Moloney as an example of someone the party should bring back into the fold. 

Cllr  Smith described the Cahir councillor  as 'one of the hardest working councillors in the country, a man utterly dedicated to public life and solving people’s problems. His work for employment, enterprise, cultural activities and his ability to take new initiatives and bring people together to work on projects, is widely known.'

He added – 'Cllr  Moloney comes from an impeccable Fianna Fáil background whose entire family have supported the party down through the years and is doing a magnificent job in representing the people of Cahir. It begs the question what would his contribution be like from the inside?'

Cllr Smith touched on the loss of representation in the former Fianna Fail stronghold of Tipperary. “A county that once prided itself in gaining four seats out of six or seven seat constituencies in successive General Elections, settling for a single seat without a battle and a half, would be defeatist in the extreme”, he claimed

He said 'Fianna Fail must work to bring back former voters and other former Fianna Fáil councillors. “Party members who are happy to harvest voters from another party must surely want to bring back some of our own”, he stated..

In regards to any upcoming general election, the councillor noted, “a one seat strategy condemns Fianna Fáil to permanent opposition or leaves the winning of an election to somewhere else other than Tipperary. Fundamental principles cannot be pursued from the opposition benches”.

He wished candidate Sandra Farrell well in the next general election as she bids to win a second seat for the party alongside sitting TD Jackie Cahill.

Sandra Farrell welcomed Cllr Smith’s 'call to arms to the Fianna Fail voters in Tipperary to help the party deliver two seats in the constituency.”.

She said that was the strategy which she and Jackie Cahill TD had for Tipperary. The candidate went on to say she believed a collective approach on transfers can deliver two seats in Dáil Éireann.

“There are the problems facing us, but the flip-side is the opportunity that the failure of this government gives us. Until 2011, we almost always returned two seats for Fianna Fail in Tipperary, and North Tipperary almost always had a Fianna Fail seat”.

She outlined how the three candidate strategy returned over 18,500 votes, almost one and half quotas. 

“At the next general election, there will be almost 10,000 extra votes to play for in Lower Ormond, so with the proper vote management, and all of us working together to maximise the vote across the constituency, north and south, we can win two seats”, she added.