Tuesday, July 21, 2015

 

Jack Wall looks back on his career in politics

 

By Noel O’Driscoll

KILDARE South TD Jack Wall has expressed c

onfidence that Labour will retain the seat held by him for the past 18 years following his retirement at the next election.

Speaking to the Kildare Nationalist as part of a wide ranging interview following his decision to retire Deputy Wall also spoke about the loneliness of political life, the support he received from his family, friends and the electorate and the vagaries of chairing parliamentary party meetings when in government and while in opposition.

While several within the Labour Party have walked away over particular differences they had with the party leadership, Jack Wall said the idea never entered his mind.

“It never entered my head to walk away; I was there for 23 years and in that time I saw more than enough people walk away. They were different people with different arguments at the time and I would ask people to tell me where one resignation made the slightest bit of difference. In my view it never did and I feel it is better to stay in than to walk away and to lose any input that you can have on the making of decisions.”

Deputy Wall has served under five Labour party leaders and he drew a sporting analogy when speaking about his working relationship with them. “There have been five leaders since I became a member of the Oireachtas, Dick Spring, Ruairí Quinn, Pat Rabbitte, Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton. I have great respect for each of them. We had our rows over the years but we never had fall out rows over anything. There were times when I did disagree with a direction they were taking, or a view they held and we argued it out. On occasions that I couldn’t persuade them around to my way of thinking I took the view that they were the captain and I had to respect the decision of the captain and follow their lead.”

As chairman of the parliamentary party for the past 13 years Deputy Wall says the job is much harder when the party is in government. “Out of government people are, by and large, going in the same direction. The meetings are far more contentious when you are in government and you have a responsibility to be fair to everyone and to give everyone a chance to get their point across and to give the ministers a chance to respond.”

Looking towards retirement Deputy Wall said that one thing he won’t miss is having to be away from family, friends and home several night a week, every week. “The life of a TD is a lonely life; particularly if you are a rural TD you have to stay in Dublin three nights a week. It’s particularly hard when the government has a slim majority and there is an expectation that you will be there for every vote. That said I feel that the current situation where the government has a massive majority isn’t very healthy either. In ways it allows for a certain slackness among TDs attending the Dáil but then on the other hand it allows for more time to be spent in the constituency. As a TD it wouldn’t be uncommon to get a phone call late at night telling you to go to be in Dublin first thing in the morning or to get an early morning phone call telling you to immediately go to Dublin.”

Jack said that none of what he did in politics would have been possible without those around him, particularly his wife Anne who passed away in October of last year. “Anne wouldn’t have had a huge interest in politics but she saw that I had something to offer and I was never in any doubt that I had her full support. Of course the children, and in recent years the grandchildren, have always been a great source of support to me. I am lucky in that we all live fairly close to each other. My daughter Catherine and son John live with their families in Athy, Mark lives just up the road from me with his family and Sinead and her children live with me.”

When contesting his first election Jack said he had one less worry than many others. “When I was appointed as a Senator I took a leave of absence from Borden (the can manufacturing plant) where I had been working as an electrician. At the time my boss there told me he would hold the job for me for five years and if I wasn’t elected to the Dáil or wasn’t elected to the Seanad I would still have a job.

“That made the decision to allow my name to go forward in 1997 easier, because we didn’t have to worry about an income not coming into the house if I wasn’t elected.”

In the Dáil Jack says he found many friends, many from the Kildare constituencies. “I have been lucky to have had many friends. One of my closest friends is Emmet Stagg and it was he who asked me to contest the first election. At that time Kildare was a five-seat constituency and while other TDs were jealously guarding their patch Emmet was in effect asking me to become his running mate and also his rival for votes. It was typical of Emmet’s generosity and something for which I am very grateful.

“At present I am quite friendly with Seán (Ó Fearghail) and Martin (Heydon) and Seán Power (former TD) would be one of the lads I would talk to on the phone quite regularly. Bernard Durkan is another man who I have huge respect for. I always believed that you fight an election and once the election is over the TDs in a constituency must work together as a team for the betterment of those who elected them and that is what I have always tried to do. And I hope and trust that the people who elected me feel I did the very best I could for them.”

Looking to the future Deputy Wall says he is confident that despite current opinion polls Labour will retain the South Kildare seat. “I have absolutely no doubt it can be retained. If I thought it could be at risk and if I thought me running again could lessen that risk I would have run again but I don’t see that happening.

“There will be a lot of water to flow under the bridge between now and the election and I am confident that Labour will do far better in the election than the current polls would have you believe.”

 

 

 

Pull quote

 

“I always believed that you fight an election and once the election is over the TDs in a constituency must work together as a team for the betterment of those who elected them and that is what I have always tried to do”