Job losses and court battles could hurt Fianna Fáil in West Limerick

While Bertie Ahern holes himself up in the tidal wave of controversy surrounding the revelation that he took “loans” from friends to finance the costs of his legal seperation, the news has not been good for the Government either in this part of the country.

Newcastle West was dealt another blow after 260 jobs were put in doubt as the Castlemahon Poultry plant, was put into liquidation. The plant also supported over 150 farmers who produced chicks and eggs for the plant.

This will be a serious blow to the local economy and comes only months after 280 further jobs were lost in the region. These comprised of 140 lay-offs at Castlemahon and another 140 at Kentoher Poultry.

There will now be 700 or 800 unhappy people in the environs of Newcastle West in the run-up to an election for a start. While running up a €20 million debt might have been Caslemahon’s own fault, how the ordinary workers vote will depend on how long a task force to get a new employer in the area can be set up or how easy they find it to get another job. Some of the staff at Castlemahon have been there decades and will find it difficult to find work because of their age.

Another problem for Fianna Fáil in the West is the tax fraud charge which is still hanging over Michael Collins TD’s head. He was before the district court in Newcastle West facing two charges which came about after he failed to disclose the fact that he had a bogus non-resident account in 2002.

It was alleged that he cheated the Collector General’s Office by obtaining a tax clearance certificate under false pretences contrary to common law on a date unknown between 2 May and 31 May 2002. This charge of cheating was dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions on 28th September. No reason was given for the decision to drop this charge.

However, the other charge remains. Collins is further charged with obtaining a tax clearance certificate under the Standards in Public Office Act by falsely pretending to be tax compliant.

He wasn’t so lucky with this charge, as the case was sent forward to the Circuit Criminal Court and he is due to appear there on November 8th.

The DPP must be confident they are going to get a conviction on the second charge if they couldn’t be bothered proceding with the first. I cannot think of any other reason why they would drop one charge and go ahead with another. Collins received the book of evidence in August, and has been remanded on his own bail.

If this tax case is still running at election time, it could do harm to Collins, thus making the way for the country’s unluckiest politician, Fine Gael’s Michael Finucane.

In 2002, Finucane lost out to party colleague Dan Neville by a single vote after a recount which he requested himself.

At the end of the recount in 2002, Finucane had 8,563 votes while Neville had 8,654 votes.