After winning six elections, it looks like FF will drop me
A FIANNA Fáil Councillor being investigated for his comments on asylum seekers expects to be running as an Independent in local elections after winning six terms for the party.
Cllr Séamus Walsh from Oughterard, Co. Galway, says that he has ‘no doubt’ that he will be running as an independent candidate in the local elections in June.
It comes as he awaits a disciplinary investigation by his party for comments he made after the Ross Lake hotel was burned down in an arson attack.
He told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I’ve contested six elections and won the six of them and that’s in a 25 year history.’
However he says that he expects the Fianna Fáil investigation will suspend him.
He says he will not rejoin if the party suspends him, but will go forward as an independent in June, adding: ‘That is a fact, there is no doubt about that.’
After the fire that occurred in Ross Lake Hotel, Cllr Walsh condemned the fire, but said: ‘We have to stand back and look at it, and if it was a criminal act, what made that criminal act happen, and it’s this senseless policy of the Government.
‘The people are living in fear, and if it was done maliciously, it is absolutely the fear for the safety and wellbeing of their families.’
Speaking on Galway Bay FM at the time, he said Oughterard, Rosscahill and Maam Cross ‘have taken their fair share of immigrants’.
Cllr Walsh said he was representing his community in his comments at the time.
His fellow local Fianna Fáil councillor Noel Thomas, who is also being investigated by the party for his comments, said at the time the ‘inn is full’ and Ireland should not accept any more refugees.