Astute adviser who revived Fine Gael’s fortunes
FRANK Flannery was chief executive officer of the Rehab group for more than 25 years before he stepped down and was replaced by Angela Kerins. He became its chairman but is far better known as an influential figure working behind the scenes at Fine Gael. That career ended yesterday.
Silver-haired and smoothtalking, Mr Flannery was frequently deployed during election campaigns to handle the media, but was equally adept at knocking the heads of warring candidates on the same slate. Now pushing 70 years of age, the Galway man’s modest demeanour belies a track record of achievement. It is as a strategist, rather than the ‘handler’ PR tag of old, that Mr Flannery chiefly fancied his own talents. ‘His best work is often unseen,’ said a political friend last week. ‘And his deadlier acts are anonymous.’
Priding himself on his political antennae and the raw intelligence about other parties, Mr Flannery is not beyond having a word in the ear of a journalist about an opposition figure so long as it helps grease the wheel of Fine Gael.
As a political consultant and Fine Gael director of organisation and strategy, he was not without missteps, however.
One which did him serious damage was the unusual admission to the media that Enda Kenny had considered coalition with Sinn Féin in a bid to make up the numbers after the 2007 general election.
But Mr Flannery was back at Fine Gael party headquarters for each day of the 2011 general election campaign.
In the early-Eighties he worked as a strategist for Garret FitzGerald through a series of general elections in 18 months.
After the 2002 Michael Noonan ‘meltdown’, Mr Flannery carried out a root-and-branch analysis of how Fine Gael could rebuild.
He is particularly proud of being national director of elections in 2009 when the local elections delivered a long-cherished ambition as Fine Gael became the largest party in the country for the first time.
Some TDs have criticised the grandee for overseeing the recruitment of RTÉ broadcaster George Lee into the party, only for that move to go horribly wrong when Mr Lee later resigned his seat.