Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan has gone through four years of political hell since he voted with the Government to close the emergency service in Roscommon hospital.
One of his most vivid memories is being at a meeting of the British-Irish Association in Cambridge and getting a text message from a close friend warning him not to attend a neighbour’s funeral as he would not be welcome.
“That was a sign to me of how far the contagion had gone and it was no longer about the hospital but something deeper,” says Mr Feighan.
Smart decision
He has taken some belated consolation from the public acknowledgment by Roscommon Hospital consultant Dr Liam McMullan that the hospital service has actually improved as a result of the decision to close the emergency service but it has come too late to save his Dáil career.
“The controversy finished my career in politics. I had to put up with a level of hostility from people that shocked me,” said the TD who announced earlier this year he would not contest next year’s election.
“It changed my life. I had to endure hostility and a sense of being unwelcome in my own county that was difficult to come to terms with,” he said.
“Before that hospital controversy I felt that I was a popular figure in the constituency, having been elected to the Dáil on two occasions. After it, I was suddenly turned into a hate figure.”
Feighan said that before politics he had been in business and had always got along with people but, after the vote on the hospital, people not only refused to shake his hand but often shunned him on public occasions.
“I went to a book launch attended by 300 people and nobody would speak to me,” he said.
He knew from the start that it was always going to be very difficult for him after he voted to close the emergency service, no matter how much sense it made on medical or financial grounds.
One of the things that upsets him is that he did not get the support he expected from the medical professionals who knew the emergency service was no longer tenable.
“Everyone ran for cover in the face of the hysteria and I had to struggle on alone,” he says.
Expert validation
“Unfortunately people are not inclined to believe politicians so we need validation from experts when we do the right thing but that did not happen in this case.”
Nonetheless, he is delighted that Dr McMullen has put the facts about the hospital position on the public record and also criticised those politicians who had shamelessly tried to mislead the electorate with trite promises.
Another point he makes is that politicians are routinely criticised for making decisions based on local electoral considerations and not acting in the national interest.
While he says that the welfare of the people in Roscommon is his primary concern, he notes wider political considerations applied when the hospital vote happened in the Dáil some four years ago.
“If I had deserted the Government in the summer of 2011, who knows what might have happened to the Coalition which was faced with taking such difficult decisions in the national interest,” he says. “I did the right thing by the county of Roscommon and by the country and that is some consolation for what happened to me.”
