Fine Gael’s Coveney and Buttimer split on efforts to form government

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney and his Fine Gael colleague Jerry Buttimer differ strongly on whether Fine Gael should aim to go back into government in some new coalition arrangement or should retire to the opposition benches.

Mr Coveney, who took the fourth and final seat in Cork South Central, was adamant Fine Gael should remember that it has a duty to help form a new government.

Mr Coveney said there was “an obligation on us as the largest party in the Dail to look at how we can contribute to government” but he didn’t expect that to be an easy or straightforward process and thought that it would instead take time, perhaps several weeks.

"Clearly the electorate have rejected the proposition of Fine Gael and Labour going back into government but I mean they haven't rejected Fine Gael as a political party because we are still the largest political party in the country," said Mr Coveney.

“It’s only the second election ever that we have been the largest political party in the country so with that comes a responsibility - of course we are not happy with this result - but we have responsibilities and we will take those responsibilities seriously.”

He said the party should reflect on both its failures and its successes in the general election.

"Enda Kenny is the leader of the largest party in the country and we need to sit down collectively and focus on what this election means for us in terms of the formation of the next government and how we can reflect on how people have voted in that formation .

“I don’t think that’s going to be a straight forward or a short process. I think you will see a number of weeks of debates and discussions and I suspect they will be quite fractious (between parties) but let’s wait and see. We need to have that discussion within the party first.”

However, Mr Coveney's running mate, Jerry Buttimer, who lost his seat in Cork South Central to Sinn Féin's Donnchadh O Laoghaire, disagreed.

He was unequivocal in his belief that Fine Gael should now go into opposition after the electorate clearly voted against the current coalition.

“Fine Gael should go into opposition, absolutely. The people have spoken and they have given a mandate to the opposition in my opinion and they have told us, in Fine Gael and Labour, that our mandate as a government, comprising Fine Gael and Labour, is over.

“Our failure to communicate our message and the fact that we have lost over 10 percentage points from our perspective means the people have said: ‘we don’t want ye to be part of the next government’.

"We should allow Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin and others to come in and run the country because they have now said they have alternative policies and propositions to be put to the people and let's see them held to account for what they want to do."

But Mr Coveney said while Fianna Fail will be “cock-a-hoop” after the election result which saw them more than double their number of seats, the fact remains that Fine Gael was still the largest party in the Dáil.

"I think Fine Gael as a party is frustrated with this result - we felt we should be getting seven or eight more seats than we have and that is frustrating for us because the aspiration clearly for us was to put a government together with the Labour Party and maybe some others.

“That’s not possible now on the current numbers (but) let’s reflect now on what is possible and try and be responsible in terms of what we need to do as a party that will be probably eight to ten seats bigger than any other party and play our part as the largest party in the Dáil.”