Cathal Crowe, a Fianna Fáil TD for Clare, has said he does not believe Micheál Martin will be leading the party into the next general election.
His comments on Saturday came after the Fianna Fáil’s candidate, Councillor Deirdre Conroy, secured just five per cent of the vote in Thursday’s byelection, which saw Ivana Bacik elected as the new TD for Dublin Bay South.
The election was held after Fine Gael TD and former housing minister Eoghan Murphy left politics.
Mr Crowe said that voters usually convey messages to parties in byelections. “They have been delivered this time.
“There are messages here for Fianna Fáil. Deirdre was a new candidate, she’s only two years in politics and this was a pretty high-profile campaign,” he told RTÉ Radio One’s Saturday with Katie Hannon programme.
He said all of the Government parties lost ground in the byelection and they would have to analyse why this was.
Mr Crowe added that he did not agree with Jim O’Callaghan’s assertion that the party is failing in relation to housing.
“Fianna Fáil, and Government, does get the housing crisis, and we have had more initiatives sparked in the past 15 months than we have in the past decade.”
Mr O’Callaghan, a Fianna Fáil Dublin Bay South TD and director of elections for this byelection, said the party would “have to think” about Mr Martin’s leadership.
Speaking outside the count centre on Friday, he added that the party does not understand the scale of the housing crisis and would face similar poor results in the next general election if nothing changed.
Mr Crowe did agree with Mr O’Callaghan in terms of Mr Martin’s leadership.
“I think Micheál Martin is our Taoiseach... I expect by the next general election, we would have a new leader by then.
“This is just a personal view I have, and I think a lot would share that view that there would be new leadership by then.
“There’s a job to be done now, and I think he is doing a pretty good job in this time of crisis.”
The Clare TD added that the poor result for the party could be in relation to Covid-19 restrictions. “It’s dragging on and on, there’s a lot of social restrictions, lasting far longer than we would have liked.”