FF MEP to step aside on health grounds
VETERAN Ireland South MEP Brian Crowley said yesterday that for health reasons he would not contest the upcoming European Parliament elections.
Following months of speculation, the 54-year-old said he would not seek re-election in May as he can no longer mount the sort of campaigns that saw him top the polls since he was first elected MEP in 1994.
The Fianna Fáil politician, who was left paralysed from the hips down after a fall at the age of 16, revealed that he has undergone ‘30 surgeries in the past three-and-ahalf years’ and that it was affecting his ability to represent the public.
‘The main reason is I don’t feel I would be able to put in the campaign that would be required to give the people of the South the kind of campaign they deserve,’ he said. His health problems stemmed from complications from pressure sores associated with being a wheelchair user. Before these health issues emerged, Mr Crowley had one of the best attendance records in the European Parliament.
‘People did deserve better and I tried to do my best,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t physically do it. I didn’t want to be in hospital, not being able to go out and do my job. It was frustrating. I loved my job. I loved the excitement every single day I was in Brussels and Strasbourg. People elected me to be their representative and I tried my best to be the representative that I can.’
Mr Crowley, who entered politics in 1993 when Albert Reynolds nominated him for a Seanad seat, said that he had not told Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin about his intention to retire. He said the two men haven’t spoken since 2014; in that year, he was expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party after defecting from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the European Parliament grouping to which Fianna Fáil is aligned.
He joined the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a rightwing, Eurosceptic group. The move caused major embarrassment for Mr Martin, who, at the time, said of the ECR: ‘A core part of that group has views about Europe that is an anathema to where we stand.’
Yesterday, Mr Crowley defended that decision, arguing that the ECR had a diverse membership, as evidenced by its chairman Syed Kamall, a British MEP who is a practising Muslim and whose father was born in Guyana.
On Mr Martin, Mr Crowley said: ‘I’ve a very good relationship with a lot of people in Fianna Fáil, but I haven’t spoken to Micheál Martin in a while. But he’s the leader of the party and he’s doing a fantastic job in difficult circumstances.’
Thirty surgeries in recent years