Politics

Political temperature rises in anticipation of Kenny exit

Taoiseach set to name departure date and set succession race in motion for FG blue bloods

The political reality for Enda Kenny is that once the departure date is named, the first line of his political obituary will be written. Photograph: The Irish Times

Harry McGee's face
Harry McGee
Wed May 17 2017 - 16:40

At moments like this in Leinster House, there is a sense that all is suspended. Everything else is relegated to a sideshow: parliamentary business, Government decisions, party announcements.

Sure they go through the motions. But all the focus and all the talk goes in one direction. Is this the moment? The atmosphere is markedly different.

TDs and Senators, officials, advisers, media and hangers-on have clustered together endlessly speculating about if Enda Kenny will finally put us out of our misery and name a date for departure. And will it be immediately? Or will he wait a few weeks until July?

The answers to all those questions depend on whom is speaking? He himself has given few clues, keeping announcements about his departure vague. But with each passing week, the inevitable has looked more and more, well, inevitable. Significantly last night, he told a Kerry colleague that Colm Gooch Cooper knew the time to call it a day. What can be read into that? Many things. But only one thing can be read with certainty: he is certainly now thinking in terms of Enda Exit.

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At the launch of Marie Louise O’Donnell’s policy paper on Finite Life, his emotions rather than his words (just before the parliamentary party) clearly betrayed how emotional this period is for him.

Exit time

If he steps down this evening, Fine Gael will have a new leader and taoiseach by the second week of June. The only other scenario is a delay of two or three weeks, with him stepping down as Fine Gael leader upon his return from his overseas trip on June 7th. That would allow him to attend the June 22nd summit as Taoiseach with his successor taking over the following week.

Such days of suspense are rare. The last time it was the chaotic 24 hours following Brian Cowen’s night of the long knives. He decided to make over half his cabinet resign to be replaced with younger blood. But the Greens belatedly objected to it and Cowen had to make a humiliating climb-down. With half his cabinet gone, he was flying on one wing. It spelled the end of that government.

The previous time it again involved Fine Gael and Enda Kenny, this time around the challenge to his leadership in 2010, which he survived. And two years beforehand, there was the same speculation about when Bertie Ahern would finally bite the political bullet, and step down.

Another interesting aspect is the wisdom of Kenny’s decision to announce he would not contest a third term. He was under pressure at the time, but was it a mistake? Former Tory prime minister David Cameron had done the same in Britain and he paid a price for it. Because the political reality is that once you name your departure date, you are writing the first line of your political obituary.

And his successor? There is no doubt that whoever succeeds him in particular will get an enormous boost in opinion polls. But you must remember that that happened when Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern in 2008 and his figures went stratospheric. But, it was like the fidget spinner, a temporary craze, that died away quickly.

That’s why many think that a Fine Gael change in leadership will precipitate a quick election to allow Kenny’s successor trade on buoyant polls.

Fine Gael Leadership