Newly elected Labour Cllr Graham Spring and re-elected Cllr Terry O’Brien have a chat at the count centre yesterday. Photo by Dermot Crean
LABOUR councillor Terry O’Brien says the leaders of the party have to “grow a pair” and make some tough decisions or the party “be non-existent” after the next general election.
Cllr O’Brien was speaking at the John Mitchels GAA Complex on Sunday after he was re-elected to Kerry County Council.
“Labour have got their answer now,” he said. “We need to have a serious look at ourselves; what we’re doing, what we’re not doing. Somebody’s got to grow a pair make some tough decisions. If we go into a general election like this we’ll be the next Green Party.”
“Somebody asked me ‘is it a case of going back to the drawing board?’ It’s more a case of someone should be beaten with the drawing board! I’m not sure if the party’s aware of what’s happening on the ground.”
He also said being the junior party in the coalition didn’t help as Fine Gael have greater control over Govt policy.
“We’re the party of the working class and if you take five cent of a Labour person it’ll hurt more than taking five cent off a Fine Gael person. So I suppose that came back against us as well. Fine Gael, with the greater amount of seats, will have most of their ideas put forward and all Labour can do is stabilise those ideas a small bit. It obviously hasn’t worked and if we go to a general election like this we’ll be non-existent.”
