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LAST UPDATE | 28 Oct 2018
FIANNA FÁIL TD Niall Collins has said that Peter Casey should “realise that you can’t just rock up to political parties and think that you can get your way”.
Casey had earlier told the Sunday Independent that he will be “joining Fianna Fáil” and that he intends to run in the next general election in Donegal.
“I am becoming a Fianna Fáil TD with a view to becoming Taoiseach, as the head of a renewed and revitalised Fianna Fáil,” he said.
He said that he believes that party has “lost it way” in recent years, adding:
“I want to be the one that leads Fianna Fáil back to its natural home as the party of the people, to get it back on track and get the party listening again to the real people, to get outside of the bubble of Dublin and Leinster House and the political and media establishment.”
Michael D Higgins was last night re-elected as President of Ireland, with a landslide vote of over 58%.
Casey secured 23.3% of the vote, landing himself in second place.
Speaking to RTÉ One’s The Week in Politics, Collins said that “there’s bad news” for Casey as Fianna Fáil’s ticket in Donegal “is complete”.
“We have Charlie McConalogue and Pat The Cope Gallagher as our two sitting TDs there,” he said.
Peter would want to realise that you can’t just rock up to political parties and think that you can get your way. That’s not how it works.
Collins went on to add that “personally, I wouldn’t like to see Peter Casey join Fianna Fáil”.
Elsewhere Timmy Dooley, another senior TD and the party’s communications spokesperson, simply tweeted “Ah we’re ok thanks” in response to a news story about Casey’s comments.
Casey sustained criticism for a series of comments about the Traveller community, across a variety of media appearances, during his presidential campaign.
“There’s no place for blanket prejudice within Fianna Fáil,” Collins said today.
Speaking to reporters at Dublin Castle last night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar laughed at the suggestion that Casey might join Fine Gael, stating that he thought it was “decidedly unlikely”.
While anyone is welcome to join Fine Gael, he said they must sign up to the “values of the party”.
- With reporting by Daragh Brophy
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Aodhan was asked on RTÉ radio if he would welcome such a centre in Clontarf where he lives. In a roundabout way the answer was no and he believes it is for other areas to deal with this.
@Michael McLoughlin:
Car break ins, assaults, drug dealing increase in areas adjacent to injection and methadone centres.
Send all drug users to a remote Island and give them as much drugs as they want.
They’ve opted out of society. We owe them nothing.
@m flynsk: is it not society doesn’t want them?plus your way of thinking and typing belongs in the Stone Age get a book and educate yourself,these people never got up one day and thought ahh hay I’ll be a heroine addict(all drug users) that you say could you explain that part a bit better because it makes you sound an uneducated Fool!
Put it beside your house then. Dublin 8 is already all of Dublin’s drug users dumping ground. Each community should be responsible for their own. We have enough centres, hostels, needle exchanges etc. All within a 10 minute walk of each other.
@Thomas Quinn: Problem is – the majority of people who use drugs are located in inner city areas, or at least frequent there. They are not out in great numbers in Sutton or Dundrum. I’d be happy with smaller sites dotted around the city but that’s probably not economical. It was supposed to be a pilot. DCC should have at least piloted it. If it worked -hooray. If it didn’t, halt it.
@Annie Citric: We have to move from Dublin 8 next year because it is so bad now already. Guardai do not stop or search anyone within a radius of these charity or government hostels/needle exhanges or drug clinics and with so many in the area that means dealers walk around with impunity. 5 guys deal openly opposite the late night centre and carry blades and bat’s intimidating people openly and St Patrick’s Park is filled with the walking dead. I have removed needles close by were my daughter plays. I have a solution for these centres. Prison. Lock them up and give them free heroin in supervision. If they want to get clean provide the support and weaning off service there too along with job support upon release. Enough is enough.
@Annie Citric: Unless you’ve done a census on IV drug users and their home addresses that’s a guess at best. There is a cohort of city centre dwelling addicts but there are a considerable amount who use their free passes on public transport to travel into the city centre each day because that’s where the “treatment” centres and homeless shelters are. Time to move them into the localities where these people actually come from instead of constantly drawing them into The D1/D2/D8 areas. Maybe then ordinary decent taxpaying workers can enjoy the city centre, and maybe the city will get a chance to become a more family friendly place, instead of something resembling a set from the walking dead.
@Annie Citric: The users travel to those places to get their drugs they are fro all over the country and for all backgrounds
@Annie Citric: how would you like to see an injection centre put on the doorstep of your children’s school, having to have the blinds closed because of the sightings they have to see day in and day out. That centre will only attract more dealers and more addicts. They need help to come off drugs not keeping them on it.
The failed labour minister backs another loser.
The city council listened to the local community and said NO.
Drug users bring crime, anti social behaviour and violence and to create a Walking dead zombie farm, where stoned, out of their heads, criminals can bring heroin, that they bought illegally with the proceeds of a criminal act and shoot up at the Tax payers expense. GET A GRIP.. It wouldn’t help on of them become clean.
Hopefully now D1 and D2 get cleaned up and the stoned Zombies destroing the city are removed.
Well done DCC and the Hug a thug brigade can go to hell
@Mark Mccormack: I lived around the corner from one in Brisbane and it was grand. There was never an issue. This has worked in other countries. A pilot scheme is worth a shot.
@Ned Flanders: live not too far from there myself. It does work, it works in Portugal, it works in the Netherlands. Addiction is a side effect of social isolation and a lack of purpose. These centres solve these root causes and the addiction fades in many cases. If we elevate the lowest in society we improve society.
Today’s goverment only approve popular decisions..vote hunting
Merchants Quay ( Franciscan Order) own a massive nursing home (Assisi House) on the Navan Rd beside the Papal Nuncio. Its where they keep there most prolific sex offender Ronald Bennet. That could be used as an injecting centre ? On all the bus routes and near the city centre.
@Jim Lahy: Grafton st is an excellent choice for the centre, Luas and plenty of buses there so addicts can travel hassle free for treatment.
@Niall O’Neill: Except for the people who use those very heavily used services and we have enough addicts of our own thanks all the same
Bit of a shame, that. Pity these poor souls couldn’t be given free drugs to be taken out of their misery and the dealers out of business.
An injecting centre??? Would it not make more sense to get people off drugs than offer them a legal place to take them?? It appears to me that injecting centres are the first step to make drug taking socially acceptable.
@Michael MC Evoy: I don’t think taking heroin is ever going to be accepted by society. It will never ever be gotten rid of either. The only thing that can be done is at least try and reduce the harm caused and save lives.
Why can these facilities not be placed in local existing hospitals throughout the city ? Taking new build units into the community is of course going to cause concern. These are drug addiction units and as such a hospital is the best place for them .
There remains a dire need to address & prevent the shooting up & user debris in public areas.
Surely there is a simpler way by fitting out mobile dispensary units to cater for 4 or 6 per session, so that there is no need to congregate all users to 1 place.
Am not impressed that these users are expected to purchase their own gear, thus continuing the criminal connection & influence. This gear not alone is illegal, but is potentially lethal.
Cannot the seized gear be quality & safety tested for use in such mobile units?
have your say