Fine Gael councillor Pa O’Driscoll has confirmed that he will not be seeking re-election in next year’s local elections. The news, which had been widely speculated for some time and party insiders aware of his stance, comes ahead of the party’s selection convention for the Fermoy Electoral Area on Sunday.

Speaking to The Avondhu this week, the 30-year-old schoolteacher said he’d thought about it, balanced it up and discussed it with a number of people and decided that at this moment in time, it isn’t for him. He will however, remain active in the party, he says.

The Rathcormac native, who’d come up through the ranks of Young Fine Gael, topped the poll in the local elections in 2009, delighting the party locally, who saw him as a bright, able young man with a long and promising political career ahead of him. His bid for the Dail just two years later was rather less successful though, his 5,030 first preference votes not enough to win him a seat.

Asked by The Avondhu if he’d consider running again in the next general election, he gave an emphatic ‘no’. He explained that his teaching career had been on hold since he’d joined Cork County Council, due to the demands of the latter in terms of attending meetings. “The council and teaching are not a good marriage. It’s a fulltime job, not a part time one,” he said of the council.

“I’m a very idealistic person. I genuinely believe politics is a way of bettering society but councils are very restrictive in what they can do. It is very limited and very repetitive and I just felt giving another five years would reduce it even more in my estimation,” he explained. “I was hoping the reform of local government would radically shift power from the county manager to councillors but its only been tweaked,” he added.

He says he’s open minded as to what he will do. “I’ve learned an awful lot in the last four years. It’s been a hell of an experience.”

In ruling out another bid at national politics he said “I don’t know where I’ll be”.

The young councillor, who is well liked and respected by his colleagues, will serve out his term on Cork County Council until the local elections in June next year.