Beverly Cooper Flynn - because she's not worth it.

A bit of storm (composed of unsavoury farmyard material) has blown up over the weekend concerning the revelation that Deputy Flynn (FF) will receive an allowance of almost 50K per year because she was elected as an independent deputy in 2007. What appears not to have been so deeply probed so far is the validity of her standing as an independent.

I seem to recall that she made much of her FF involvement and her long history with the Micheal O'Morain Cumann during the course of the campaign. "Asked if in the event of a hung Dail, where Fine Gael-Labour was one vote short of forming a government, would she vote for her fellow Mayoman, Enda Kenny, as Taoiseach, she said her sole concern was to get herself elected. "If I found myself in that situation, I would do what is in the best interest," she added, reminding me of her Fianna Fail background."

Also, as you can read here it was reported prior to the 2007 election that FF HQ were threatening party members with expulsion if they supported her, note if they were threatening them with expulsion then that means they were still members of the party. So how was she an independent if nominated by members of political party?

I think this is worth giving the Western People and the county offices a call tomorrow looking for a copy of the nomination form for deputy Flynn for 2007. Then I'm going to go looking for FF to provide membership lists for Mayo for the last decade and I'm going to compare the two. If she was nominated by people who were in fact members of FF. FF did disband branches in Castlebar after her departure but it is not 100% clear if they actually voided the membership of those people). If the people who nominated her were still de facto members of FF then her entitlement to this allowance is in question.