Fine Gael Councillor Willie Aird says he is solely focused on retaining his seat in the Laois County Council in June.
Rumours had been circulating in recent weeks that the long serving local politician was poised to enter the race to become the Fine Gael nomination for the next General Election.
While no date for that has been set, it will have to take place by this time next year at the latest.
In September last, Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the current Dail and not contest the next election.
Speculation on who would seek to replace him has been ongoing ever since but Aird says that he is only thinking about the Local Election in June.
He said: “My focus is on June and I am trying to get re-elected to serve the people of Portlaoise.
“We are all just concentrating on the Local Elections and that is where all my efforts are going.”
Willie Aird has served as a local councillor since 1979 when he was elected at the age of 18 to Portlaoise Town Commission.
He won a seat to Laois County Council in 1985 and has been there ever since.
The Local and European Elections are set to take place between June 6 and 9.
After that, attention will turn to the formation of the 34th Dail where an Election will have to be held on or before February 2025.
As has been well reported at this stage, the old Laois-Offaly Constituency has been abolished.
That contained five seats for the two counties but Laois has now returned to a three seat constituency.
We currently have three sitting TDs – Fianna Fail’s Sean Fleming, Sinn Fein’s Brian Stanley and Fine Gael’s Flanagan.
The odds would have favoured a return for all three at the next election as they have performed very well in 2020.
But Flanagan’s departure makes his seat less certain and opens the door to potential suitors – from both within and outside Fine Gael.
Party sources have indicated that the process to replace Flanagan as a candidate will not take place until after the Local Elections.
SEE ALSO – Solid second half sees Laois defeat Kildare to maintain 100% start
