Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Extremely committed. Hard working. Diligent. A tremendous public representative.

Just some of the praise Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin heaped on Éamon Ó Cuív when the party’s former deputy leader and long-serving Galway West TD retired from politics last year.

Martin, who previously clashed with Ó Cuív on policy and party direction, went even further.

The Cork TD described the former Gaeltacht Minister as “one of the most conscientious and dedicated politicians I’ve ever worked with”.

Not conscientious or dedicated enough to be given the opportunity to pitch to become the party’s Presidential candidate, though, Micheál?

The micro-managing – or micro-mis-managing – of the Fianna Fáil Presidential Election candidate selection process was a by-product of the control-freakish way Martin leads. It’s Micheál’s way, or the highway.

Even still, it was shocking that the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party –TDs, Senators and MEPs – facilitated party headquarters in Mount Street to impose Jim Gavin on them without a proper, transparent selection process.

Even allowing for solid support of challenger MEP Billy Kelleher, a herd of sheep would have had more independent thought than most of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, who did what Micheál told them.

Had they held hustings with all the interested candidates, Gavin, the party leader’s choice, may still have emerged as winner. But he’d have been tested. And he’d have earned the candidacy.

Lack of clear selection procedures alienated – and humiliated – Fianna Fáil grandees like Ó Cuív, Bertie Ahern and Mary Hanafin. It angered grassroots.

That deficient selection process also contributed to the premature embarrassing exit of the former Dublin football boss from the Presidential race.

They botched the election campaign, too. Gavin’s ultimate downfall – an historic debt owed to a tenant – was just the latest in a string of avoidable cock-ups.

Fianna Fáil supporters in Galway West had seen them before when Gráinne Seoige was chosen last year to contest the General Election following diktats from HQ.

Fianna Fáil learned nothing from that fiasco and the similarities between Jim Gavin’s and Gráinne Seoige’s campaigns are uncanny.

It’s not just the parachuting in of politically untested celebrity candidates. Both campaigns alienated, mistreated and disrespected card-carrying members. Both campaigns made avoidable, amateur mistakes.

Campaigners for Gavin, a senior executive at the Irish Aviation Authority, used drones to gather promotional footage at a parkrun, without appropriate permissions; and had to delete inappropriate promotional selfies with senior Defence Forces personnel.

These gaffes were on a par with Seoige’s campaign which left sitting Galway West TD, Catherine Connolly, off a mock ballot paper distributed as promotional material for the broadcaster. Classy!

Fianna Fáil HQ decreed that Gavin wouldn’t do media appearances before the selection process. Seoige was also kept away from microphones, prior to her unveiling to members at a ‘selection convention’, which effectively had a pre-determined outcome.

That was wrong on both occasions; scrutiny could have steeled them ahead of their respective bruising campaigns.

Éamon Ó Cuív might not have won the Presidential Election. But the man who dedicated his life to Fianna Fáil, to Ireland, to the Peace Process, to the Irish language, had earned the right to be considered.

Although not a candidate, Ó Cuív, in this election campaign, again showed himself to be an utterly decent, honest, republican – in the truest sense – when he put his reputation on the line to defend Catherine Connolly’s decision, for rehabilitation reasons, to hire a former prisoner convicted by the Special Criminal Court of firearms offences.

Form is temporary, class is permanent.

Pictured: Would-be TD Gráinne Seoige greeting Baby Ruadhan Owens on the General Election campaign trail with Micheál Mlartin last year. When it came to the Presidential Election, FF HQ learned nothing from its decision to  parachute in an untested celebrity candidate.