Fianna Fail Councillor Nick Killian on Cowen’s “Lack of Leadership”

Fianna Fail Councillor Nick Killian, from Meath, hasn’t completely removed the Fianna Fail logo from his leaflets (see PDF), but you would be forgiven for thinking he had. In an interview with the Meath Chronicle he gives a pretty horrific review of the party under Ahern and Cowen and the scale of the mess Fianna Failers face on the hustings and at the polling booth.

Some choice quotes from the man who delivered a stinging rebuke to Cowen’s leadership style and hinted at a much wider fallout at the local elections than many would concede.

Cllr Killian said that party supporters are saying quite clearly to him “that they are going to hurt Fianna Fail on this occasion”…

He sounded an ominous warning that there would be “repercussions” if Fianna Fail turned in a bad result on 5th June…

“People laugh now when they think of the addresses that Charles Haughey made on television, especially in view of what came out later, but even in the roughest days of the Haughey era, there was never the degree of hostility that we are facing now.

“There are people out there with pent-up feelings, anger about numerous issues. There is a cohort of Fianna Fail supporters, public sector workers prominent among them, out there saying that they won’t give a vote to Fianna Fail becauase of the way Brian Cowen has allowed the country to run into the ground in the last 12 months,” he said. And former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern does not escape the lash – “Bertie Ahern has to take his share of the blame for what happened, it is all about leadership at the end of the day”.

Cllr Killian said he had advised at a FF councillors’ meeting last November that the Taoiseach should go on television “and communicate directly with the Irish people to tell them what direction we were going in”. He had not done that. “I consider that a failure of communications,” the councillor said.

But wait there is more, Cowen has been condemned for letting the party organisation decay and the handling of candidate selections but this reads like a check list of problems within the party.

“There is nothing personal in any of this. I have meet Brian Cowen on numerous occasions. He is a nice man, personable and good company to be with. But, at the end of the day, he is president of Fianna Fail and Taoiseach of the country. The complete lack of leadership is extremely disappointing.”

“There is no point in saying all this after the election. People within the party have a right to be heard. I have been in the party since I was 16, 44 years ago, and I have a family tradition in it going a long way back, but I have never seen such anger that is being directed at Fianna Fail at the moment.”

One might wonder why he would put a career like this in the party at risk? Well there is the first reason – that Cowen has the party in such a mess and the government have done similarly with the country that the most independent Fianna Failer still has only a 50/50 chance. The electoral reality means distance is needed and it might be no harm for a public distancing from the party in Dublin.

That is not to say his points are wrong, nor are they a minority view. The selection process for candidates has split parties across the region and Meath is no different – indeed a second, more cynical view, of why this is coming out now can be gleaned from another passage in the article.

The Ratoath public representative sought a nomination from his party for the European election but this was rejected. He hit out at the “insulting” way he had been turned down. “I was told back to me that a party official had said ‘your face doesn’t fit’”. He said there was “utter confusion” over the choosing of European candidates… “I believe that Fianna Fail is not being well served by party HQ – in fact, the organisation is a shambles at the moment”…

“With all due respects to Thomas Byrne, he was thrown into the European election at the last minute, and that is no way to run the party at the moment.”

The councillor said Mr Cowen would have to take responsibility for the way in which European and local election candidates were chosen. “He is the boss at the end of the day. I know he is busy with the economy but he is president of the party and he has to take responsibility when the party is not being run properly.” Since the party’s rules and regulations had been changed five to six years ago, too much power had been centralised at HQ, he said…

“I refused to be interviewed. I wouldn’t put myself through that.” He said that he had made his views known “in no uncertain manner”, by using a two-word expression, one word of which was “off”. He described the process as “pathetically undemocratic”.

Not alone is it compelling from a political point of view it is the most cogent critique of elements of Cowen’s handling of issues and speaks volume to his style. The kitchen cabinet model of Cowen, Lenihan and Coughlan at the top of the tree has been run in cabinet, the party and in the Dail. There is little communication of the thinking of the Taoiseach and the impression of a bunker mentality within Government Buildings only underlines the concern of voters.

The leadership style of Cowen, contrasted in the article to Haughey who managed to survive kicking off an economic mess with auction elections in the early 1980s and swingeing cuts once he came into power later in the decade, has been a nightmare. He is facing an internal mess if the party loses as badly as some think – his hope lies in the return of long serving rural candidates who require less votes to get a seat and have polished the parish pump for years.

The long term implication of a large-scale loss is the decimation of the foot-soldier base that can get Fianna Fail 40%+ in elections when they really shouldn’t. That could be Cowen’s enduring party legacy and if it is Nick Killian is the first voice among many.