THE FIANNA Fáil decision not to have a party fundraising tent at the annual Galway Races was the consequence of a “strategic review” of the organisation, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said yesterday.
Speaking on a canvassing tour for the Lisbon Treaty, he played down the significance of the decision. “There’s no controversy about it at all. Actually it was well-supported within the organisation.
“We are doing a strategic review of all of our arrangements: organisation, fundraising, recruitment.”
The fundraising tent had “served its purpose”, he said.
“We want to look at our fundraising activities and see what way we can build successfully on those. It is felt by the party that we should suspend our operations as far as Galway is concerned while that review is going on.”
The demise of the tent will hurt the party’s coffers, since it was still raising €170,000-a-year up to last year. The party had charged between €4,000 and €5,000 for a table of 10 at the tent. European commissioner Charlie McCreevy was equally happy to bid farewell to the tent: “I was not a great attendee at the tent. I felt obliged to go for half-a-day or so when I was minister. I was expected to do so.
“I found it to be a pain in the arse. I can use this type of language because this has been officially sanctioned by my friend and colleague the Taoiseach. I won’t particularly miss it at all,” he said.
However, former minister for arts, sport and tourism, Jim McDaid defended the fund-raiser as “an amenable way” of raising money, and said critics were “begrudgers and jealous”.
“The tent was a very amenable way of getting quite a large amount of funds into the coffers. It was absolutely nothing to do with corruption,” he added.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said Mr Cowen’s decision showed that he had had “serious reservations” about Fianna Fáil’s fundraising over the past few years.
“It may also be an indication that moneyed builders may not be as prevalent in the future as in the past.”
