Getting rid of town council’s ‘the biggest mistake’ - Michael Ring 

LONG-serving TD Michael Ring has branded the abolition of town council’s as ‘the biggest mistake’ made by a government during his time in politics.

Deputy Ring, who today (Tuesday) announced his retirement from politics after 45 years in office, hit out at the decision to abolish town councils in 2014.

Westport Town Council, Castlebar Town Council and Ballina Town Council were among 80 town councils which were abolished under the Fine Gael-Labour coalition.

Deputy Ring - who served as a town councillor, county councillor and TD at one stage - was first elected to Westport Urban District Council in 1979.

He was subsequently elected to Mayo County Council in 1991 and to the Dáil in 1994 in a by-election. The Westport native will continue to serve as a TD until the dissolution of the current Dáil.

Speaking on the Tommy Marren Show on Midwest Radio, Deputy Ring said abolishing the town councils was ‘the biggest mistake’ made by the government during his career.

“The biggest single mistake the government made, and I opposed it bitterly, the biggest mistake was allowing town councils to go. I really believe it being bad for Killarney, bad for Westport, bad for Ballina, bad for Castlebar,” said Deputy Ring.

“It actually groomed candidates for future in politics. Now we don’t have any grooming, you’re either in the county council or in the Dáil. It was costing very little, we had our own budgets, we had our own autonomy, you take Westport. Westport wouldn’t be the town it is today, or Castlebar or Ballina, but for the town councils, and Killarney and all these towns.

“We had our own rate base, we were able to make our own decisions, that was taken away. The world was downsizing, the local authority was upsizing.”

Glowing tributes, including from Taoiseach Simon Harris, have been paid to Deputy Ring since he announced his retirement from politics.

Deputy Ring drew comparisons to the Mayo senior football team when asked why he and 14 other sitting Fine Gael TDs were not contesting the next election.

“It’s a bit like the Mayo team, there comes a time that you have to rebuild, there’s a time when Mayo have been rebuilding for the last few years. You get a group of people in politics and in football. In politics, we’ve had a very good run, we’re in government since 2011,” he said.

Reflecting on his time as Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring said he had ‘many rows’ with department officials.

“I was the minister. That was the one thing I’d say: ‘What constituency did you stand in? I’m the elected representative, I’m the minister’, and I made the rules and regulations’. What happened was they just accepted it.”

He added that he was ‘aggrieved’ to be overlooked for a senior government ministry after the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil coalition was formed in 2020.

“I was after getting 15,000 votes. I was the only Fine Gael TD in the whole country to top the poll, the only Fine Gael TD that beat Sinn Féin and topped the poll. I got more votes at the time that two or three of the other TDs put together, and I was disappointed that they didn’t find a place for me somewhere,” he said.

Deputy Ring said that he was asked ‘many times’ to lead the Fine Gael party, including the most recent leadership election which saw Simon Harris made leader unopposed.

Explaining his decision to refuse to take on the party leadership, Deputy Ring said: “I just felt if I did, I knew what was going to happen, I’d be losing the base that I had in Mayo. I liked the arrangement that I had; sixty percent constituency work, 40 percent speaking in the Dáil and doing other works on committees and all that kind of stuff.”

During a wide-ranging interview, Deputy Ring said he had ‘no regrets’ from his 45 years in politics.

Deputy Ring also said he found the 2018 abortion referendum and assisted dying legislation ‘very difficult’ given his personal views on the issues.

“I found it difficult with the abortion, but I had to accept that I was within a political party, a political system, a majority of the parliamentary party wanted to do this. We had our opportunity at a parliamentary party meeting, we didn’t get enough of people to support us. We all found that difficult.”

He described the late Taoiseach John Bruton as ‘the best thinking politician’ in the Dáil in the last 30 years and also praised new Taoiseach Simon Harris for re-energising the party.

Deputy Ring said he did not yet know who would contest his seat in the next general election, which must take place next year at the latest.

He mentioned ‘very fine councillors’ Cllr Peter Flynn and Cllr Gerry Coyle as candidates who may potentially run for his seat.

Deputy Ring also lashed out at ‘the abuse and vile stuff’ on ‘uncontrolled social media’.

“I think the world, government, Europe will have to do something about this. It can’t go on.”