Two members of Galway County Council have announced plans to run as independent candidates in June's local elections.
The Fine Gael Cathaoirleach of the local authority said he will run as a community candidate, after he failed to secure a party nomination to run in the Athenry-Oranmore electoral area.
Liam Carroll said he had expressed a willingness to stand for Fine Gael and offered himself as a candidate.
Speaking on Galway Bay FM this morning, he said he was disappointed not to have been chosen to run and would not be renewing his membership of the party when it elapses at the end of next month.
Mr Carroll said he felt he had been treated appallingly.
The Oranmore-based politician regained his council seat in the 2019 elections, having previously served between 2009 and 2014.
His exclusion from the Fine Gael ticket comes a day after the party’s local TD, Ciarán Cannon, announced he was retiring from politics and would not stand in the next general election.
Meanwhile, one of Fianna Fáil’s Conamara-based councillors is also planning to run as an unaffiliated candidate next June.
Séamus Walsh said he made the decision following ongoing disagreements with party leadership in recent months.
The Oughterard-based representative was a vocal critic of the Government’s plan to house asylum seekers at a former hotel in Conamara last year. The Ross Lake House Hotel was destroyed in an arson attack last December.
Cllr Walsh said he felt he had a duty to represent the people who had elected him and that the stance of Fianna Fáil was at odds with that.
He maintained that senior figures are disengaged from ordinary members and are more interested in appeasing the Green Party, than listening to the grassroots of their own party.
Cllr Walsh said he will run for re-election in June and has been in talks with the recently formed Independent Ireland party.
