The Mayo News

INDEPENDENT councillor Michael Kilcoyne is categorical about any rumoured return to the Labour Party. He told The Mayo News flatly: “My return is a matter for the Labour Party. It’s about what the Labour Party is prepared to offer me.” Kilcoyne ‘uncompromising’ about political future


Áine Ryan

CHARACTERISTICALLY, Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne is uncompromising and categorical about any rumoured return to the Labour Party. He told The Mayo News flatly: “My return is a matter for the Labour Party. It’s about what the Labour Party is prepared to offer me.”
It may be nearly five years since Castlebar Town Councillor Michael Kilcoyne left the Labour Party but, in his view, he didn’t leave the Labour Party, ‘they left me’.
He explains: “It was over strategy for the local elections in 2004. I felt that there should be two candidates for Mayo County Council [himself and Johnny Mee] and three for Castlebar Town Council.
“I narrowly missed Mayo County Council, as an Independent candidate, by 57 votes, just beaten by Johnny Mee,” he recalls. “Then, I got 1.4 quotas in the last Town Council elections, and if I had a running mate, he would have benefited.”
Cllr Kilcoyne is sceptical as to whether his former party ‘has learned from strategy errors’; they are ‘not in touch with reality’, he muses.
However, he did concede that there have been ongoing discussions between himself and the party, some of which have been ‘serious’.
 “I know Eamonn Gilmore and I worked with him; I will talk to the party if there are clear, distinctive benefits.” However, he also warned that he does not compromise on his principles and ‘people’ rather than ‘ivory tower policy’ will always take precedence. 
“I don’t take instruction from on high easily. I take my views from the people on the ground, not from policy, even if sometimes that goes against party policy.”
Concurring with Cllr Johnny Mee, he also observed that with ‘the new population surge in Castlebar there are new alignments and political leanings’.
“I think the Labour Party has to become very relevant to the people on the ground. That didn’t happen under Pat Rabbitte’s leadership. We shouldn’t have tied ourselves to Fine Gael and I am not saying they are as bad as Fianna Fáil, but there are very little differences,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.
“I believe in the next local elections there will be a move away from Fianna Fáil – and not necessarily towards Fine Gael – but more to the left-leaning parties. Gilmore needs to bring the party to the left though,” he continued.
Praising local election candidate, Harry Barrett, he argued that he had ‘no doubt that Harry Barrett would make an excellent candidate and councillor’.
“Whether I am in or out of the party, I am looking forward to working with him in the future. He is prepared to take on some of the sacred cows of Fianna Fáil.”

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