Fine Gael’s Frank Feighan to seek return to Dáil

Fine Gael Senator and former TD Frank Feighan is to seek the party’s nomination to contest the next general election.

Mr Feighan, who said he had received death threats after voting with his party to close Roscommon Hospital’s emergency department during the last Dáil, said he believed there had been a significant shift in the public’s attitude towards him.

He said he had been asked by the party not to run in the last election because of “baggage” linked to the hospital issue and accepted he would not have held his seat. However, he said he believed his position had since been vindicated following significant investment in the hospital.

‘Pie in the sky’

The Senator said a public letter by Roscommon hospital consultant Liam McMullen in 2015, in which he criticised election candidates who were “quite shamelessly” promising to restore the emergency department knowing this to be “pie in the sky”, had been a key development.

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Mr Feighan previously spoke of being vilified and shunned following the closure of the emergency department, but insisted the hospital was now safer and busier than before. A new endoscopy unit opened last year and a medical rehabilitation unit and palliative care centre were in the pipeline, he said.

Asked why he would want to return to the Dáil after the difficulties he had faced, Mr Feighan said he went from “shock to anger to hurt but now I am out the other side”.