PARTY DISSIDENTS:GOVERNMENT CHIEF Whip John Curran has said that he is holding informal discussions on an "ongoing basis" with the four Fianna Fáil TDs who have lost the party whip.
Speaking to journalists at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party conference in Galway, Mr Curran said that there were “no formal talks”. “I talk to them all on an ongoing basis,” Mr Curran said, as he did with other party members.
The four outside the party whip are Dr Jim McDaid of Donegal North East; Dr Jimmy Devins and Eamon Scanlon, Sligo; and Mattie McGrath, Tipperary South.
Asked if a “particular process” was in train to bring the deputies back into the parliamentary party, Mr Curran said “the process is the issues under which they resigned”.
“If significant progress is made they may be of a mind to. But for the moment, they know the issues themselves and they are monitoring them,” he said.
“From the chief whip’s point of view, I have a working relationship with them,” Mr Curran added, pointing out that they were broadly supportive of the Government’s economic policy.
But two of those TDs outside the party whip said they had not been contacted by the whip.
Mr Scanlon said he wanted the extension for Sligo General Hospital promised in the last budget and Mr McGrath said the Taoiseach would need to “restrain” the Green Party.
Mr Scanlon agreed yesterday that the “Government has my support but at the same time I am very conscious of Sligo General Hospital and the improvement that’s required for that hospital”.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at Onehe said he had not spoken to Mr Curran since the Dáil went into summer recess in July. "I would be in contact with all my colleagues over the summer but I haven't spoken to the chief whip," he said.
Mr McGrath said: “I haven’t heard a word from anybody”. He said that to return to the party he would need “a forthright response from the Taoiseach in relation to the Greens but also in regard to many more issues and decisive leaderships which is not what we have had”. “I am not anti-coalition but I am anti-small parties dictating policy,” he said.