Mayo FF councillor calls for 'immediate leadership contest to save party'

A Mayo Fianna Fáil elected representative has warned the party will only survive if it instigates an immediate leadership contest.

Councillor Brendan Mulroy said the widening disconnect between party leadership, grassroots members and the public is undermining the organisation going forward.

The Westport-based representative elaborated: “If we want to keep our party alive, it is important we have an open and transparent leadership battle,

“Let everyone come out and lay their cards on the table. That is the only way Fianna Fáil is going to survive.

“If we want to survive into the next generation and the one after that, we need to be very transparent and we have to bring the people with us.

“The reality is Fianna Fáil let the people of the country down in past week and they let the party down when it came to the presidential election.

“Those on the protest were not strangers. They were people I grew up with, who I went to school alongside and who I have known for years.

“The government should have come out clearly and said ‘we understand how bad things are for people' but they failed to do so.

"And that's why change at the top is needed now."