A FRIEND AND associate of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is planning to launch a website called “Fianna Fail Nua”. Mr Beades, a businessman and member of the Fianna Fail national executive, has said he wants to promote “root and branch reform” of the party.

Mr Beades told RTE Radio One’s Drivetime yesterday that his proposal was similar to “what Tony Blair did with New Labour in England” and claimed the FF Cabinet ministers had taken control of the party, and away from the grass roots members. He described Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey’s joint appearnce on RTE’s Six-One News during the week to announce the new mobile speed cameras as “like Laurel and Hardy”.

He said an initial meeting of those interested in a “Fianna Fail Nua” was held on September 29. He said of the current Government:

It’s reached the end of the road. The IMF are in town and it’s really time for Brian Cowen to go, and he should go tonight. Unless Brian Cowen resigns immediately, all credibility has been lost.

The whole Cabinet needs to go, but the problem we have is we’re in a financial crisis at the moment… that cannot really happen.

Jerry Beades, who lives in Clontarf, north Dublin, caused a political kerfuffle last March when he called on Brian Cowen to undertake a major reshuffle of his Cabinet, to get rid of several sitting Cabinet ministers and bring new candidates up to the table. He had also been a highly vocal critic of former Financial Regulator Patrick Neary in the past five years over what he saw as lax rules for the banks.