Galway TD Éamon Ó Cuív reflects on 30 year political career, coalition concerns, and Ireland’s future

Despite citing age as his main reason for retirement, Éamon Ó Cuív said “there are other things” he wants to do in his life.

The 74-year-old Fianna Fáil TD for Galway West has been a parliamentarian since 1992, and has held various cabinet positions in that time.

This includes an almost eight-year long stint as Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Ó Cuív has also long been a vocal critic of his party leader Micheál Martin, having voiced his discontent with party decisions such as the formation of the current coalition with Fine Gael and the Green Party, and the ruling out of a possible coalition with Sinn Féin.

“It’s not a personal animosity, and I have been in the minority, and I accept that.”

Ó Cuív expressed that he was “very proud” that in Fianna Fáil’s vote on the current coalition agreement, where the no side received 26% of the vote, the Galway West branch bucked the national trend with 66% voting against the deal.

Celebrity Candidates

Speaking to Galway Pulse about the recent influx of celebrities into politics, Ó Cuív said that in his view politics is an “open business” and has “always been open to personalities to come forward out of non-political life and stand for election.”

In Galway West, TV presenter Gráinne Seoige and Councillor John Connolly have been selected to contest the general election for Fianna Fáil.

“You might check the name Jack Lynch, former Taoiseach, probably one of the most successful sports stars ever in the country, the only man ever to win six All-Ireland’s in a row. He won most of them playing hurling for Cork, but he won a football the year Cork didn’t win the hurling.”

“So you know, celebrities, if that’s what you call them, are nothing new. I have been out and about with Gráinne Seoige, and obviously Cllr Connolly, and I have to say that she’s a very down to Earth person, I don’t think she sees herself as a celebrity. I think she sees herself as somebody who earned her living though television.”

Many politicians that have recently announced their retirements have cited a “toxicity” in politics that has come about in recent times. This was seen with the resignation of Galway East TD Ciarán Cannon who said, “There’s a coarseness, a toxicity in politics now that was barely palpable twenty years ago.”

However, Ó Cúiv said he has not experienced any such toxicity, that “people are nice, people are courteous”, and he hasn’t found “any hostility”.

Election Chances

Looking forward to the next election, Ó Cuív commented that Fianna Fáil is “not the same force in Irish politics it [once] was”, but that “elections are fickle things” and was cautious to make predictions as “you never know in elections”.

When asked whether a pre or post-Christmas election would benefit Fianna Fáil more he joked, “At the moment, with the opinion polls, maybe if we extend it to two years it would be even better.”

“I think we need to try persuade the people that we’ve a radical approach to things that is not business as usual, and that in this election were going to be fresh and new and bring new ideas to the table.”

Ó Cuív has long expressed his opinion that Sinn Féin would be a suitable coalition partner for Fianna Fáil, a position that is not shared by his party leader: “I’m a republican, obviously you’d have to hammer out your Programme for Government, but I’d rather be pushed on the more radical side than on the conservative side.”

He argued that Fianna Fáil should present its policies as a party, not in partnership with Fine Gael, at the next general election.

“I’d much prefer to have much more radical policies than Fine Gael would agree to, and therefore I would prefer to go out there and say this is what Fianna Fáil is offering.”

In the longer term, Ó Cuív predicted that Irish politics will eventually “settle down, once again” to a two-party system, with a number of smaller parties. His fear, is that Fianna Fáil will not end up being one of “the big two”, and that they could be squeezed out by Sinn Féin and Fine Gael.

Another source of conflict between Ó Cuív and his party leadership has been the coalition of the past five years.

“This government hasn’t been kind to Galway on a local level, and particularly in terms of transport, we have been held up very, very, badly. We [didn’t get] the western rail corridor to Claremorris, Castlebar, Westport, and Balina, and we didn’t get the bypass at Galway either.”

Middle East

Back in 2018 during the previous government, Fianna Fáil supported the Occupied Territories Bill, a law that, if implemented, would ban imports from illegal settlements, namely Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Subsequently, during the 2020 government negotiations between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party, the bill was omitted from the Programme for Government due to Fine Gael’s opposition to this. Ó Cuív said that he is in support of the bill, and explained his position on the wider crisis in the Middle East:

“I think what’s happening in the Middle East, on all sides, and all violence is wrong, is very, very dangerous.”

“The retribution that has been taken by Israel is disproportionate, but more importantly, I cannot see how they don’t understand that pulverising any nation is only going to create a new generation of people who will take up arms against the oppressor, and we have seen that in the Irish case.”

When asked if Ireland should be advocating for EU-wide sanctions on Israel, Ó Cuív said, “I think what we need to do is push for the rule of law, absolutely, and whatever steps are needed to enforce that.”

He said that the EU should be “fighting against the promotion of the armaments industry”.

“When you look at who make the armaments; China, Russia, Europe…and America, of course being the biggest of all the Western world, make the arms, largely, and supply them to the poorer countries to do the fighting.

“The armaments industry has to bear a huge responsibility.”

Budget 2025

Discussing the recent budget, Ó Cuív compared it to the giveaways that were seen back in the Celtic Tiger when he had a seat at the cabinet table.

“One of the problems that happens in the good times, and we saw it back in the Celtic Tiger times, and I spoke about this in the Dáil yesterday (October 3), is when the perception is there every day in the media that there’s plenty of money, people’s expectations rise exponentially.”

He also said “there is an issue”, regarding the apparent wasting of public money on recent projects, such as the Dáil bike shed: “There’s a management issue there. Of course, the reality is you have 15 cabinet ministers overseeing, I think, 400,000 public servants, and it’s not possible to micromanage the whole lot of that from 15 people who have very, very busy lives with multiple functions, including being members of Dáil Eireann.”

The bike shed, deemed “inexcusable and inexplicable” by the Taoiseach, caused uproar last month when it was discovered that the shelter, which has the capacity for 18 bikes and doesn’t even stop them from getting wet, cost the taxpayer €336,000.

Ó Cuív said that there were too many complications caused in construction due to Dáil Éireann being a listed building.

“One of our big problems is over-specification. It’s a fantastic bike shed, well it is if you don’t mind your bike getting wet. But it’s a very beautiful structure with a granite base, but who puts a granite base on a bike shed?”