'I was very fortunate to have a job when other TDs hadn't'

A desire to return to politics burns strongly in former Independent TD Joe Behan

DEFEAT MAY not be good for a career “but it’s good for the soul”, according to Joe Behan (52), former Independent TD for Wicklow.

After six successive successful elections as a Fianna Fáil candidate, including the 2007 general election, and 22 years as a local councillor, he found defeat in February was “a setback”.

“But very often you learn more from the setbacks than from the victories.”

And one of those lessons was suffering a “double whammy between the really loyal Fianna Fáil voters” who refused to vote for him because he resigned from the party and “the people who hated Fianna Fáil with a passion, knew I had been in the party and then that I voted for the budget”.

That was the December budget which ushered in €6 billion in cuts.

He knew that in supporting the draconian measures “if I was doing it for my career I was mad to do it”.

Many politicians believed it likely he would save his seat if he voted against the budget. But he feels if he had done that “you’re only a weathervane, doing what you think everyone else wants you to do”.

“You have to exercise some bit of judgment, and some people recognised that I had the courage of my convictions.

“I paid the price for following what I thought was right. Everyone in the country had too much to lose” if the budget failed.

“I felt, no more than I did in 2008, that I was doing the right thing.”

In a move that convulsed Fianna Fáil, he resigned in October 2008 during the emergency budget over the ending of the automatic entitlement of over 70s to the medical card and the increase in class sizes.

He said “we had given solid commitments to the people before the election” that this would not happen.

“I always felt that Fianna Fáil had a good track record in education. Micheál Martin was a good minister for education, and Donogh O’Malley was the best” for his introduction of free secondary-level education.

But Behan believed “Fianna Fáil was losing its grip when the elderly and children had to pay the price for catastrophic decisions during the boom. And they were going to have to pay it before anyone else.”

A primary school principal, he returned in March to his job as head teacher at St Fergal’s Senior National School in Bray for third- to sixth-class pupils.

“Now classes sizes are an issue again which is interesting. I recognised that I was very fortunate to have a job when other TDs hadn’t.”

But he says “it’s reasonable for a period of time – one or two Dáil sessions – that you’d have the right to go back . . . In the private sector while people take a chance, very often having the experience of being a TD gives them a string to their bow.”

With the immediate return to St Fergal’s, “I didn’t have time to dwell on the defeat and that’s a good thing”.

But he has since had time “to look at my own future”.

“I’m certainly hungry and determined” to get back into politics. “I’m just as keen to get back into the political fray. The first opportunity I get I will do it.”

And that will be the local elections in three years. “I’m counting it down.”

Not surprised by his defeat, he was disappointed, particularly given the number of Independents in the current Dáil.

As a TD, while he had local issues to look after, “I enjoyed the national perspective, and when I became an Independent I had a freedom to look at things at a national level”.

JOE BEHAN - INDEPENDENT

Constituency: Wicklow

First elected: 2007

Dáil service:Four years

Current status: School principal