SWIFT RISE OF FORMER FG AIDE MAKES SOME QUESTION EXPERIENCE
The rise of Jennifer Carroll MacNeill as a contender in the electoral jewel in the Fine Gael crown has been swift.
To all appearances Ms MacNeill has the perfect CV for the post.
Within Fine Gael she has been an adviser to enda Kenny, Frances Fitzgerald, Alan Shatter and eoghan Murphy.
She also cuts a dashing pose as the wife of the rugby legend hugo MacNeill.
Fortuitously, the newly elected councillor occupies that part of Dún Laoghaire that is also the power base of Maria Bailey rather than Mary Mitchell O’Connor.
Sources within Fine Gael are somewhat chilly about the qualities of the ‘perfect’ Ms Carroll MacNeill.
Another party apparatchik noted: ‘A bit of the hillary Clintons surrounds her: icy, ambitious, not terribly good with the lower orders. The perfect candidate in theory, but the practice may not be so good.’
Poor old hugo, they added, ‘will be dragged out for the Twitter photographs and the leafleting but an election is a different space. Lots of people will have queries about his role with Goldman Sachs; just saying really.’
Ms Carroll MacNeill also inherits a divided constituency where support for her is thin.
Sources noted: ‘There is still residual sympathy for
the Baileys. ‘Jennifer was very quick on to that pitch once Maria got into trouble.
‘She is a bit of a parvenu [upstart]. No one will be dying in a ditch for her.’
One source noted: ‘At the best of times Dún
Laoghaire is a knife fight.’ The critic added: ‘She existed without trace as an FG apparatchik and she has risen without trace. It’s time for the real Jennifer to be unveiled.’’
But sources who know Ms MacNeill expressed astonishment over the latest claims and hit back at them.
One source said: ‘This is not the Jennifer we know. ‘She can be a little reserved and quiet, she is a serious politician and academic.
‘But she can also be great fun.’’
A friend of the councillor added: ‘The one thing that can be said about her is that she is absolutely not a snob, she is not a person who believes in there being lower orders.
‘She treats everyone with absolute respect.’