18 June: Controversial Mayor of Naas Timmy Conway says his surprise decision to jump the PD ship and swim with Fine Gael is largely due to Government changes to the Freedom of Information Act.
“I have a case at the moment where I can’t get the information I need," he said yesterday. "If I can’t get the information I want and the Government have decided to clamp down on giving information under the FoI, it just doesn’t make any sense to me.
"If they showed leadership and said FoI, that’s it and you get it straight away, that would be right ... but I’ve been put through the hoops to get a simple document that I need. I will get it but it’s like dragging teeth and you’re being hooked around from Billy to Jack.”
He made clear the information he is seeking concerns a private matter and has nothing to do with his position of Mayor of Naas.
When asked why he had opted to join Fine Gael, he replied that he had 'always liked Fine Gael for some unknown reason'. "I like their friendship and its leader Enda Kenny has been a very close friend of mine for years. When I was a Labour Senator I used to have dinner with John Bruton TD. We all got on very well.
“They also have a very young dynamic parliamentary party and it’s a young dynamic organisation. I believe I have a contribution to make and that my future is not with the PDs. I’ve been with them since their foundation but I now see I can make a better contribution elsewhere.”
He said the reason he had previously left the Labour Party was because its then leader Dick Spring ‘put a knife in my back’.
“I had won the Convention to take over the seat from Joe Birmingham but Dick Spring imposed Emmet Stagg instead. I told him I thought that was treachery as the Convention had chosen one candidate, and that was me.”
