Cllr. Paddy Kilduff is resigning from the Fianna Fáil party today and will join the Independent ranks on Roscommon County Council.
The Roscommon People can exclusively reveal that Cllr. Kilduff has tendered his resignation after over 52 years as a member of Fianna Fáil. He informed party HQ of his decision today and is resigning with immediate effect.
After joining the party in 1964 at the age of 16, Cllr. Kilduff went on to become one of the most prominent Fianna Fáil administrators in Roscommon before being elected in the local elections of 2004, 2009 and 2014. He was elected first citizen of the county for a one-year term in 2015.
After a long controversy-free association with the party, Cllr. Kilduff’s relationship with Fianna Fáil HQ deteriorated in recent times. At odds with party HQ for the past three years, he was censured by the party after it investigated a complaint made against Cllr. Kilduff by a colleague, Cllr. John Keogh. For his part, Cllr. Kilduff rejected those findings and bitterly complained that no investigation had been held into his complaint that he had been recorded without his knowledge when addressing a party meeting in Strokestown.
Today, as he tenders his resignation “with great sadness,” Cllr. Kilduff has slammed “unelected yet powerful administrators” whom he alleges have manipulated the party structures and shown little or no respect for grassroot members.
Why I’m resigning from Fianna Fáil today… after over 52 years in the party
By Paddy Kilduff
I have today, Thursday 8th of February 2018, tendered my resignation as a member of Fianna Fáil.
I do this with great sadness, having devoted over 50 years, the whole of my adult life, to the party.
Fianna Fáil was founded as a grassroots party where the membership defined the party ethos and controlled its destiny. Unfortunately, I feel that in recent years the party has lost its way because the grassroots are no longer at the core of the organisation.
It is my considered view that Fianna Fáil has been taken over by a cadre of unelected yet powerful administrators who manipulate the party structures, systems and rules to suit their own agenda and ideology.
This cadre has little or no respect for the membership of Fianna Fáil and this has been demonstrated time and time again at party conventions throughout the country.
It is my belief that any potential candidate who does not subscribe to the ideology of this cadre is going nowhere politically in Fianna Fáil and that members of the party are now little more than fodder for membership fees, selling tickets, knocking on doors and putting up posters.
My parting word would be to respectfully suggest that the grassroots re-assert their right to be heard above the off stage noise of the mandarins who have assumed control of Fianna Fáil.
In conclusion, I would like to thank my team of workers and the people of all political persuasions and none, who supported and encouraged me down through the years.
This decision does not affect my position as a County Councillor and I will continue to serve the people of County Roscommon to the best of my ability as an independent
representative.
