Interview with former FF Cllr…

…in the Mail, conducted by Jason O’Toole. It’s an odd tale of former FF Cllr. Liam Kelly who was blackmailed by a man who threatened him with a photograph of him allegedly taking cocaine at a party. Kelly, a recovering alcoholic strenuously denied the allegation, and a man was jailed this week for the crime of blackmail.

In its own way it’s a depressing story and it is only the political angle which is of particular interest. As the Irish Times report notes:

After the court case, Mr Kelly was highly critical of the handling of the matter by Fianna Fáil and said he had felt “betrayed”.

This latter part is expanded upon in the Mail interview.

However, Kelly stresses that he was‘ordered’ not to speak while the Garda investigation was in progress and while Fianna Fáil held its own internal inquiry. For some inexplicable reason, the Fianna Fáil inquiry took substantially longer than the Garda investigation into the incident. But when Kelly was finally exonerated and welcomed back into the political frame, it was on the condition that he apologise for any embarrassment to the party and not speak publicly about the scandal.

It continues:

This latter condition was the ‘final straw’ for Kelly, who felt it would be impossible to remain silent forever about the incriminating photograph. So he quit the party. ‘I had reason to believe that Fianna Fáil was briefing against me to the media, not only to disassociate themselves from me but to pile on the pressure for me to relinquish the whip.

And Kelly didn’t see this as the end of his political life.

Kelly fought on in the next local election as a Fianna Fáil candidate, but failed to retain his seat — losing by a mere 55 votes. ‘The loss of a council seat is a brutal experience, unlike TDs you don’t get a lump sum or bonus — merely four days’ pay!’

An interesting point, but probably not one that is likely to endear him to a broader electorate.

Kelly now plans to consult lawyers about the possibility of taking legal action against Fianna Fáil because of how the party conducted its inquiry. ‘I am considering legal action. I reached an agreement with Fianna Fáil HQ at the time that I would not speak to the press while they had their inquiry. ‘The agreement was that the inquiry would last for four months and that I could account for myself to the media at the end of that four-month period. I honoured that agreement which led to a situation where the media got the impression I was afraid to talk to them or believed myself unaccountable to them. ‘But they stalled — and it made me look like a liar.’ Kelly is still angry about how he was treated by Bertie Ahern, who he says denounced him, further upsetting his family.

And his ire at Fianna Fáil knows no limit:

‘They had an inquiry into me and treated me terribly — yet Fianna Fáil didn’t have an inquiry into the party leader over his unorthodox finances.

Which is also a fair enough point too.

‘It’s very obvious that if I had come from a political dynasty or been higher up the hierarchy as a TD I would have been treated differently. ‘At the end of the day, the State found that I had been a victim of crime. Fianna Fáil should take responsibility for all that unfolded during the inquiry. ‘I was discriminated against. They should compensate me for the actual costs involved.’ He now hopes that with the court case wrapping up yesterday it will enable him to ‘move forward’ and rebuild his life. Kelly — who once worked in PR at RTÉ star Bill O’Herlihy’s communications firm — has been unable to secure employment since the controversy blew up.

The piece also notes that:

…It’s certainly been a dramatic fall from grace for Kelly — a contemporary of Ryan Tubridy at university who had once been described by political pundits as the ‘golden boy’of Fianna Fáil and regarded by his local cumann as the heir apparent to his senior constituency colleagues, ex-ministers Noel Ahern and Pat Carey.

In a way it exemplifies, and without getting into the details of the specific case, how the world has changed, how Irish society has changed and how FF has and hasn’t. Of course there’d be a closing of ranks behind a leadership, as against a local councillor, but one wonders was there a degree of incomprehension on the part of the party as to how to deal with the allegations, as distinct from more ‘traditional’ accusations.