TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny has said the electorate’s choice of government represented “a brilliant opportunity for us to get Ireland right”.
“We’ve got . . . a mountain to climb,” Mr Kenny told an estimated 3,000 people at his homecoming celebration in Castlebar, Co Mayo, on Saturday night. “I know how to climb mountains,” he said to applause.
Referring to his first EU summit in Brussels last Friday, Mr Kenny emphasised that Ireland was a member of the EU as an equal. “As equals on issues of politics that concern people, we will fight our case and we will defend our mandate.”
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan, party Chief Whip Paul Kehoe, five junior ministers including Minister of State for Transport, Tourism and Sport Michael Ring, and fellow constituency colleagues John O’Mahony and Michelle Mulherin were seated on stage for the event.
Also on stage were MEP Jim Higgins, TDs and councillors from a number of counties, and senior party supporters, including former Galway East junior minister John Donnellan.
Mr Kenny described the election result as a “democratic revolution”, and said “in the long history of this party there has never been an occasion like this in terms of the magnitude and the quality of the result the people gave us”.
“And what I believe in is that we have within ourselves as a people the creativity, the imagination, the ingenuity, the capacity to be the best in the world.
“Irish people for centuries, because of adversity, because of economic circumstances, were forced to travel to other countries, give their duty to those jurisdictions and make their way in far distant lands,” he said.
“They’ve proven on thousands of occasions how they’ve measured up in the field of literature or sport or art or business or whatever. When Paddy puts his mind to it, there are very few who can match his intention.
“As I have said on many occasions, I never take myself seriously, but I take the job very seriously indeed.”
He expressed pride in an electorate which had returned four Fine Gael seats in Mayo.
Referring to Mayo Land League founder Michael Davitt, who had “made his mark” at home and abroad, Mr Kenny noted that “on this occasion, they elected a man from the county of Davitt to lead the government of Ireland”.
“My challenge is to lead our team so that when our remit in politics is over, the young children in this hall here can look back when they become adults and say that in their time the Fine Gael government of 2011 began to put platforms in place upon which they can stand to carry on the conduct of this country in the times ahead.”
