FORMER DUBLIN RATHDOWN TD Shane Ross has said he’s going to write a book about the last government and what happened behind the scenes from his vantage point as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.
Speaking to Pat Kenny on Newstalk this morning, Ross said what he writes will be “very outspoken”.
The former Independent Alliance TD lost his seat in this month’s general election after nine years in the Dáil.
Since 2016, he had served as minister as part of the Independent Alliance’s support of Fine Gael in power.
Ross told Kenny he expects Fianna Fáil to be in with Fine Gael when the next government is formed and “they’ll both say they’re doing it incredibly reluctantly”.
He referenced how Fine Gael has been saying it’ll only go into government as a “last resort”, and said: “People don’t say what they mean in these situations.”
“Leo Varadkar has said as a last resort,” he said. “It’s looking to me the only real option at the moment.”
Ross said that he expects those two parties to be in government with the Green Party and potentially some independents when the dust settles.
“They might think it sensible to bring in a few independents to make it more comfortable,” he said.
Ross was also asked about the government’s intervention into the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) and his role in it as minister.
The bailout for the FAI involved €7.5 million in interest-free loans, and the restoration and doubling of State funding for the troubled organisation.
“The FAI was a hornet’s nest and it came up to bite us very quickly,” he said, adding that he was happy with the new board in place and that he believes Irish football will prosper as a result.
On regrets he had from his time in office, Ross said he was sorry he had called Enda Kenny a “political corpse” prior to the formation of the government in 2016.
“I like Enda, [although] we had lots of disagreements, he said. “I never wanted to hurt him personally.”
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