Election 2016: Enda Kenny says Friday’s poll will be his last as Taoiseach

The State’s political parties have been making late appeals to voters ahead of polling on Friday in the general election.

In one of his final media interviews before the vote, Enda Kenny said he wished to serve a full term as Taoiseach but he would not lead the party into the next general election.

Mr Kenny said if re-elected he wanted to lead the Government of Fine Gael and Labour for a second term. However asked whether that would extend to another general election, Mr Kenny replied: "I wouldn't continue as Taoiseach."

Speaking on Today FM, he said he would decide on how to approach the matter at a later occasion but his sole focus now was for the return of the coalition.

Mr Kenny earlier denied he had had a difficult election campaign when questioned about his comments on "whingers" and his repeated refusal to rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil or Michael Lowry.

The Taoiseach said: “I make mistakes, but I’m man enough to acknowledge and accept responsibility for all these things.

“I think the hallmark of leadership is how you move on from issues that arise.”

The Taoiseach and several Fine Gael Ministers used the last full day of media campaigning to warn about risks to the economy from a change in administration.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said policy programmes of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin would kill jobs.

“Look at Greece, Portugal, look at Spain as soon as the political instability began the economic instability followed,” Mr Noonan said.

Conservative government

Tánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton warned voters against electing “the most conservative government in recent decades” by default and accused Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin of displaying “smugness with a smile”.

Ms Burton said public opinion was probably more progressive and more liberal than at any time in the past. The polls indicated an arrangement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil could be struck after the election, however.

“There is a possibility, I would say a danger, that we will end up with a government in a couple of weeks which apparently nobody wants,” she said.

“We could stumble by accident into the most conservative government of recent decades.”

Ms Burton acknowledged some people who voted Labour in 2011 had been disappointed by certain decisions the party had taken in coalition with Fine Gael, but she said the current government should be returned.

“I am not offering some kind of immediate workers’ utopia or some liberal nirvana. But I’m offering solid, sustained progress and reform as part of a coalition government,” she said.

‘Fear and smear’

At a press conference in Dublin, Fianna Fáil environment spokesman Barry Cowen accused the government parties of running a campaign based on “fear and smear”.

He said Fine Gael and Labour implemented a “plan that wasn’t theirs”.

“They claimed credit for jobs they did not create. They have imposed cuts and charges in their term in office that they did not have to and, in the past three weeks specifically, they have campaigned on fear and smear in an effort to hide the ideas that were emanating from the likes of ourselves and the lack of ideas that came from them.”

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams on Wednesday sought to dismiss questions about his future and the party’s poor showing of late in polls, saying it was time for the people to have their say.

‘Peaceful’ Rising

Speaking at his party’s final press conference before the election, Mr Adams insisted this would be a big election for Sinn Féin, building on what he described as the “breakthrough” election in 2011.

He portrayed Friday as having the potential to be “our 1916 Rising, an entirely peaceful one”.

He also criticised Mr Kenny’s handling of the appointment of John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

“Despite promising a democratic revolution, Enda Kenny has kept the Fianna Fáil legacy of cronyism and political patronage alive and well,” he said.

John McNulty

Renua leader Lucinda Creighton also seized on Mr Kenny’s admission during the last RTÉ leaders’ debate that he had a role in appointing Mr McNulty despite previously distancing himself from the matter.

“The extraordinary thing is we would have a head of government who would go into the Dáil chamber and claim that black is white. We all knew that was the case. I don’t think anyone was surprise by that admission,” she said.

Speaking at the Green Party’s final press conference before the poll on Friday, leader Eamon Ryan said his “biggest fear is that the Irish people will not be inspired to go out and vote” after the campaign.

“If there is one message I have today it is ‘don’t give up on politics’. It’s our best way of deciding how we set our future for this country,” he said.

Electorate mood

In their final pitch for votes, the Social Democrats said the Government had seriously misjudged the mood of the electorate.

Dublin North West TD Róisín Shortall said it were fielding 14 seats and were eager to elect at least half of them.

“They (the Government) got off to a very bad start, they thought it was just a matter of saying they’ll keep the recovery going and most people were saying ‘What recovery?’, they hadn’t felt it.

“They also thought people just wanted tax cuts, and again they misjudged the public mood in that regard.”

North Kildare TD Catherine Murphy said there was a disillusionment with auction politics and there are thousands who will not benefit from a cut to the Universal Social Charge.

She said her party was eager to assist those people and reduce the cost of childcare and to abolish water charges.

Seat targets

The “demise” of the Labour Party has been predicted by the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit grouping, which has set a target of seven seats in Friday’s election.

TD Richard Boyd-Barrett said the election would result in a “seismic shift in the political landscape”, adding that some opinion polls put his party ahead of Labour.

“We are without question ahead of the Labour Party in the capital city,” he said.

Cllr Bríd Smith, contesting in Dublin South-Central, said it was not fair to suggest the left was divided, when it was “more joined together than ever before”.

No regrets

The Taoiseach canvassed in Trim, Co Meath yesterday where he was confronted by a number of angry voters raising issues of homelessness, fracking and emigration with him.

Mr Kenny denied he had any regrets about not going to the electorate in November.

He said: “First of all if I’d gone in November you’d have ruptured the link with the Labour Party particularly after saying that you’d go the full distance.”

Mr Kenny said there are three problem areas that he would like to fix if he is returned to power.

“One is the housing and homeless situation, two is the health issue and three is specifically mental health and the challenges that so many people face everyday.”