‘Ming’ renews hostilities with McGreal

On Wednesday of this week, in response to a query from the Roscommon People, Cllr. Luke Flanagan issued the following statement:  If Fine Gael wants to guarantee that they will hold the position of Mayor of Roscommon come June then they will have to put forward a  candidate other than Cllr. Michael McGreal.    ‘If they do put him forward then I myself will be proposing another candidate for the job. This will leave the Fine Gael candidate in the position of only having 13 council votes out of the 26 in the chamber. This brings about the possibility of having to draw lots for the Mayoral position. However I would be prepared to support another Fine Gael candidate in the position if it meant that Cllr. McGreal was not to get the job.   ‘After almost four years of dealing with Cllr. McGreal I can safely say that hell will freeze over before I vote for him as Mayor. There are a litany of reasons for this and they are as follows:  His lack of support for my campaign to remove Castlerea Towns Trust in spite of the 1400 plus people who came out and wrote to the Minister requesting its revocation. His attempts to have a road built through the Demesne. Remember he only raised the matter after I had left the council chamber. His trenchant support for the siting of a Civic Amenity Site at the Demesne in spite of the whole town being against it.   ‘There are many other reasons but the ones given are quite sufficient for me to justify not voting for him as Mayor. Sure how could I do it? How could I stand in the Council chamber and say that Cllr. Michael McGreal is the best man for the job? I would vote for Paddy Kilduff (Fianna Fail councillor with whom Cllr. Flanagan has also clashed publicly) before I would do that.    ‘How could I go back to the long-suffering people of Ballinlough and tell them that I had voted for Michael McGreal as Mayor of our County?    ‘Let nobody say that I did not stick to my agreement with Fine Gael. The reality is that it was they through Michael McGreal that violated the agreement. In fact my gripe is not with Fine Gael at all. It is with one man and one man only.    ‘In fact from a local perspective it is Cllr. McGreal who has not stuck by Fine Gael. The proof of this is the fact that in relation to the siting of the Civic Amenity Site at the Demesne, the local Fine Gael branch unanimously supported my position while utterly rejecting Cllr. McGreal’s. So the question is: are Fine Gael willing to put control of the Council at risk in order to ‘save the bacon’ of a man who doesn’t even have the support of his local branch? Roll on the AGM. I can’t wait.’