Enda Kenny: not so lite now - Village Magazine

18 February 2016

2016 ELECTION

nda Kenny has deﬁed those detrac-

tors who have claimed for many years

that he is not up to the job of leading

the country. Or has he? His supporters

claim that he has brought the country,

and the economy, from the brink of complete

meltdown to steady recovery and is now set to

be the ﬁrst Fine Gael leader to claim the title of

Taoiseach in successive elections. Others say

that timing and luck have played a huge part in

his belated success after more than 40 years in

the Dáil and that victory in this month’s poll is

by no means certain.

Over the past ﬁve years, Kenny has displayed

many of the characteristics that marked the

career of his long-term adversary, Bertie Ahern,

including the ability to shake off, or at least

postpone, controversies that would have

caused terminal damage to other party

leaders.

His claim to have secured a signiﬁcant debt

write-down from his EU partners in June 2012

proved to be untrue. His siding with the ECB and

the Bundesbank against the struggling Greek

people who put the radical leftists of Syriza into

power was self-serving and opportunist and

arguably undermined any prospect of Ireland

getting some early relief on its enormous legacy

of banking debt.

His instruction to the Secretary General of the

Department of Justice, Brian Purcell, to make a

late-night visit to the Garda Commissioner,

Martin Callinan, leading to the resignation of

both senior public servants and of his own long

-time supporter, Alan Shatter, in mid-2014, is

all a fog of obfuscation.

Similarly, the manner in which the Commis-

sion of Inquiry he announced to examine the

purchase of Siteserv by long-time party sup-

porter, Denis O’Brien, and other IBRC sales in

mid-2015, was allowed to run into the sand due

to its restricted powers and inadequate terms

of reference bears all the ﬁnger prints of his

senior handlers.

His outrageous and inaccurate remarks from

Davos to Madrid to Paris on Ireland’s crisis and

his government’s role in recovery have con-

firmed that he has not lost the habit of

appearing the clown, unintentionally, at the

most unexpected moments.

Enda Kenny also merits opprobrium for his

broken promise to ﬁx the health system, the

failure to deal with a deepening housing crisis

and the widening of the income divide between

the richest and most vulnerable during these

past few years.

Yet the stars, and international factors,

including a strong dollar and sterling, unex

pected multi-national tax payments and the

dramatic oil-price collapse have combined to

see Kenny emerge as the architect of the fast-

est-growing economy in Europe and the

cheerful bestower of a ﬁstful of promises to

simultaneously cut taxes, improve public ser-

vices and recruit thousands of nurses, teachers

and gardaí.

Kenny has luck on his side. He was fortunate

to lose the leadership contest against Michael

Noonan after John Bruton lost the 1997 general

election to Ahern and before the 2002 poll when

the Fine Gael vote imploded. Kenny survived

with his lowest ever ﬁrst preference vote in

Mayo and Noonan resigned. The Mayo TD took

over the party in June 2002 after a battle with

Richard Bruton. Kenny was helped by transfers

from his soon-to-be key ally, Phil Hogan, in the

run-off and after the elimination of Jim

Mitchell.

He faced into the 2007 general election as the

blitz of his bizarre ﬁnancial arrangements

threatened to take out Ahern but failed to con-

vince voters that he could do better than Fianna

Fáil in managing a faltering economy. Once

again, luck was on Kenny’s side as Brian Cowen

replaced Ahern a year later and was engulfed

by the banking and property collapse.

In 2011, after two failed heaves against him,

the Fine Gael leader hauled his party to an his-

toric victory and into government with a

resurgent Labour Party, after the Fianna Fáil/

Green administration collapsed in acrimony

and the people gave it an unprecedented bat-

tering in the February election.

There is no doubt that he has rid himself of

the ‘Bertie lite’ tag that dogged him for years,

although his closest aides still do not trust him

enough to let him out on his own too often.

Kenny maintains a quirky, hail-fellow-well-

met style that makes him seem like a country

bumpkin but disguises a more ruthless political

streak and shrewdness..

In mid-2014, Kenny publicly distanced his

Enda Kenny:

not so lite now

Luck, charm, good handlers and a ruthless streak

make him the man to beat in election 2016

by Frank Connolly

He merits opprobrium for his broken

promise to ﬁx the health system, the failure

to deal with a deepening housing crisis and

the widening of the income divide between

the richest and most vulnerable during

these past few years

February 2016 19

party from its key strategist, and his close

friend, Frank Flannery who was embroiled in a

ﬁnancial scandal which erupted after details

emerged of enormous salaries and other pay-

ments involving the Rehab charity and its senior

executives. Flannery who had left the charity

some years previously was being well paid for

consultancy work which involved lobbying his

colleagues in Fine Gael. He had a pass for Lein-

ster House and free parking which the public

was informed was being removed. It was a

humiliating experience for the suave PR man

and no doubt difﬁcult for Kenny.

A few weeks later the pair sat down for lunch

in Dobbins restaurant near the Dáil along with

another old friend and party elder, the late Bill

O’ Herlihy. Kenny expressed a degree of regret

that Flannery had been shafted and was sorry

that he had to withdraw his valuable Dáil pass.

“Don’t worry about that, Enda”, commiser-

ated Flannery, or words to that effect, as he

pulled the pass from his jacket pocket, to laugh-

ter all round. Kenny never forgets his friends

even when the going gets tough.

Kenny was gifted a Dáil seat for Mayo west in

November 1975 after the premature death of his

father, Henry, from cancer. The young teacher

was a newly appointed principal at Knockroos-

key primary school near Westport and followed

in his father’s footballing steps, playing for

local club Islandeady. In September 1975, he

played for the club, alongside his younger

brother Kieran, in a county intermediate ﬁnal

against Ballinrobe. His team was accused of

“punch and crunch tactics” by the opposition

and the local media. However the two Kenny

boys were absolved of any misbehaviour. As in

his political life, Kenny surrounded himself with

a few hard men who have taken the hit for him

when the occasion requires.

At the 50th birthday celebration for one his of

most loyal, and aggressive, allies, Kilkenny TD

Phil Hogan in July 2010 in Bennettsbridge,

Kenny made reference in his speech to another

former teammate, Michael Lowry. The Tipperary

TD and former cabinet colleague left the party

when he was told he could not stand on its

ticket for the 1997 election. This followed rev-

elations in the McCracken tribunal that he had

received enormous sums, and an extension to

his home, from retailer, Ben Dunne. Despite

ongoing revelations in the Moriarty tribunal

about Lowry’s receipt of huge monies from

Denis O’Brien for whom he helped acquire the

lucrative second mobile-phone licence from the

State in 1995, Kenny referred to the disgraced

TD on no less than three occasions during the

function for Hogan.

“Is that an application form I see in your top

pocket?”, he joked as the 150 guests fell about

the place.

As Taoiseach he shared the stand in May

2012 at the opening of the New York stock

exchange with billionaire O’Brien who retains

an unhealthy inﬂuence on politics through his

wealth and control of a range of media organi-

sations. Over the course of the long-running

controversy following the publication of the

damning Moriarty report earlier that year,

Kenny never forgets

his friends even when

the going gets tough

20 February 2016

2016 ELECTION

Kenny never criticised O’Brien nor withdrawn

his Dáil description of Lowry as “a man of integ-

rity”. In the early days of the current campaign

it took several interviews before he ruled out

any post-election deal with Lowry; or “any other

independents”.

Not unlike his father Kenny made little mark

during his ﬁrst decades in the Dáil, contributing

on few occasions and when he invariably only

on issues of local import. Up to his early forties,

he lived with his widowed mother Ethna at the

family home in Derrycoosh near his electoral

base in Castlebar, when he wasn’t in Dublin for

Dáil business. He was known as an affable if

harmless player who liked the city night-life

until he settled down with his partner, Fionnu-

ala O’Kelly, a former Fianna Fáil and then RTE

press ofﬁcer, in 1992. The pair had courted for

several years and later recounted how they

thought, wrongly, that they had maintained the

secrecy of their cross-party affair. She worked

directly for Charlie Haughey during those years

and was close to the former Taoiseach. Haughey

once told her that she did not have to leave the

job just because she was going out with the

Blueshirt, Kenny. Her Fine Gael connections

include a cousin, former GAA president and

MEP, Sean Kelly, although she has largely main-

tained a backroom role despite her deep

interest in political matters.

Exceptionally, she was paraded with her

husband after his leader’s speech to the FG ard

fheis in advance of the 2007 general election in

a not so subtle message to the people that at

least one candidate for Taoiseach had a steady

marriage. Ahern had recently separated from

long-term partner, Celia Larkin.

He saw off local ‘Flynnasty’ rivals, Pee and

his daughter Beverly, without ever becoming

too vocal about the former’s tribunal, and her

ﬁnancial, travails. He had been responsible for

delaying Flynn’s entry to national politics when

the bombastic Fianna Fáil school teacher stood

back from standing in 1975 knowing that Kenny

was a shoe-in. He had to compete with Fine Gael

rivals, Myles Staunton, Michael Ring and Jim

Higgins for top dog, particularly after the Mayo

constituency was redrawn into a single ﬁve-

seater before the 1992 election. It has swung

between three seats to two for either party with

the advantage to Fine Gael in recent years. He

also overcame a bitter local dispute with former

party colleague and Castlebar councillor, Frank

Durcan.

Between 1981 and 1987 he was largely

ignored by party leader, Garret FitzGerald, who

devoted just a single mention to Kenny in his

voluminous memoirs although he brieﬂy served

as junior minister for youth affairs from 1986

until the government was replaced by Haughey

and Fianna Fáil in the following year. Alan Dukes

was equally dismissive of him although he

appointed him to the front bench as spokesper-

son for the Gaeltacht.

When Bruton took over the leadership in

1991, he made Kenny junior minister with

responsiblity for job training and industrial

relations and later chief whip. He eventually

became a cabinet minister, with responsibility

for tourism and trade, again under John Bruton,

in the 1994-1997 coalition with Labour and

Democratic Left.

He famously rowed with journalist Vincent

nda Kenny leant back in the bath, smugly. He had spent

all day hiding the smugness. Up and down from Bel-

mullet to Lacken to Crossmolina bolting like a man half

his age, a streak of Louis Copeland suit, three-quarter-

smile and the matted yellow hair. The energy of a

Croagh Patrick hare. But smug withal. He’d kept it in in the butch-

er’s, in two housing estates, even with his driver. He was even

keeping it from Fionnuala. And she knew everything about him,

even the thing about not knowing the difference between GDP

and GNP, that he got a rash whenever anyone mentioned Michael

Ring, even the big thing about how Fine Gael ﬂoated ﬁnancially

in the 1990s. Big Phil and Denis knew that one too. And Lowry.

That man you had to give him credit. And yet when you did the

media did you down. In 1996 he’d called him “a man of the high-

est integrity and honour”. But he knew not to do that now. Best

just to wait two seconds before answering that you wouldn’t go

into government with him. Or any other independents. Every-

one knew what you meant. They’d never get it out of him. He

was too ordinary. He put too much effort into it. And yet By Christ

he had a lot to be smug about. He slid down, high-ﬁving in the

mirror as the waters lapped over him, at home. Mary Mitchell-

O’Connor. Good boggy waters, good MAY-o waters. And then he

did his special purr. The one his elocutionist had told him above

all to control by the breathing. No one had ever heard it.

Miaaaooowooaaa. Taoiseach, Father of the Dáil, potential EU

President, scourge of the Vatican, National debt to GDP down

from 120 to 98. Saviour of his country. He gave it a John Wayne

and thumbed up to no one in particular. A closet smug guy. Mind

you he was careful to keep the hair out of the steamy soup below.

The hair guy would be in later in the week to deal with that. Flan-

nery had recommended him. Flannery: desperately clever, as

clever a man as God put on this earth. Or certainly clever than

his Taoiseach. Yet somehow he wished he’d got his Dáil pass

back from him. Loyalty wasn’t his thing. A fox, like O’Herlihy.

Bitten by a lizard, like young Varadkar. Not like Hogan. He loved

Hogan. So big and so far away now. It wasn’t the same without

him.He wondered what was the difference between a thought

and an idea. And a plan. He had about ﬁve points. But how many

ideas and thoughts did he have? His head swam in the steamy

bathroom. How ever many it was, Kennelly said it was more

than Bertie and Cowen combined. He’d put Kennelly on €156,380,

so he should know. Five-point plan. •What Paddy wants. •Keep

the Recovery Going. •Give the rich what they want. •Stop crime.

•Don’t ever go on Vincent Browne. "purporting" to be a TD, he’d

said. Could a point be a plan? How many policies in a ﬁve-point

plan: Protecting and Creating Jobs, Introducing better, fairer

budgets to keep taxes low, Creating a completely new health

system, Smaller better government, And a political system that

achieves more and costs less. He’d never thought to include a

reference to equality or poverty. Not his thing. Not the sort of

The stars and

international factors have

combined to see Kenny

emerge as the architect

of the fastest-growing

economy in Europe and

the cheerful bestower of

a ﬁstful of promises