Newsflash! George Lee has resigned his Dublin South seat and membership of the Fine Gael party after a mere nine months as he said it was made clear he had no place to institute change.

He said he went into politics for a specific reason and he didn’t believe he could achieve that. Lee said that the Fine Gael front bench were ‘nice people’. His appointment as chairman to an economic committee was pointed to as a face exercise.

Olivia Mitchell dispelled Lee’s assertions saying that he went to parliamentary party meetings but added nothing ‘new’ to the meetings. Newstalk is reporting that Mitchell and Michael Ring both said Lee should have given it more time. Epic sour grapes expected to follow.

Update!

George Lee’s Statement

I wish to announce that I have resigned from the Fine Gael Party and from my seat in Dáil Eireann today Monday 8^th February 2010.

It has been a very difficult decision, but it is one that I have taken after a great deal of reflection on my position and on the role that I have been playing in Fine Gael since I joined that Party in May last year.

The nine months since then have been a period of enormous economic upheaval. Throughout that period I have done my best to play a positive role in contributing to the national debate and to efforts to find a solution for many of the country’s economic problems.

The reality, however, is that despite my best efforts I have had virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at this most critical time.

The role I have been playing within the party has been very limited and I have found this to be personally unfulfilling.

When I entered politics last May I made it clear that I was doing so because I wanted to try to play a new role contributing to economic policy formulation. After nine months of trying within the political system it is now my considered view that the role available to me within Fine Gael is not a role I am happy to play.

I would like thank most sincerely all those who campaigned for me, for all of their efforts and support. I would also like to thank my Secretarial and Parliamentary Assistants for all of the help and work that they have provided to me.

I particularly want to thank the electorate of Dublin South who voted for me in such large numbers last May. It has been a great privilege and an honour to serve on their behalf. However, I do not believe I would be serving the electorate honestly if I were to continue allowing my efforts and mandate to be used to promote and market economic policies into which I have had no input.

Tonight’s liveblog for RTÉ 1’s The Week in Politics over Liveblog.ie.

The upcoming elections were on the menu with Martin Cullen and Brian Hayes. Closeup on the Dublin Central byelection smackdown with Maureen O’Sullivan, Ivana Bacik, Maurice Ahern and Paschal Donoghue.