Stephen Collins: On Enda Kenny’s shelf life in office

Enda Kenny’s extraordinary instinct for political survival began to sink in over the past week as the political world took a breather after 70 days of brinkmanship and tortuous negotiations.

In spite of a terrible election campaign that resulted in Fine Gael unexpectedly losing a swathe of seats, Kenny is now installed in the Taoiseach's office for a second successive term. How long he will remain is an open question.

It was far from certain in the immediate aftermath of the election that Kenny, or Fine Gael for that matter, would hold on to office give the scale of the reverse they suffered on February 26th.

That he managed to pull it off in an utterly changed political landscape says something about Kenny’s mastery of the political art. He may not be the greatest orator in the world, but again and again he has displayed the toughness, patience and skill required for survival in the brutal business of politics.

Kenny attended his first European Council as Taoiseach shortly after taking office in March 2011. Of all the EU leaders present that day just four are still in office: Angela Merkel, David Cameron, the Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite and Kenny.

Of course, Kenny is only Taoiseach again courtesy of Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin. Since his party's surprisingly good performance Martin has also held his nerve and pursued a clear course in spite of enormous pressure to do things differently.

Personal gain

He resisted the temptation to go for short-term personal gain by getting involved in a grand coalition in which he would inevitably have been a rotating taoiseach at some point.

Instead he stuck by the minority government option he had identified even before the election as being in the best long-term interests of the country.

That enabled the centre to hold this time around, and gives it a reasonable chance of prevailing in the future, something a grand coalition between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael would not have done.

Martin’s achievement in bringing Fianna Fáil back from the brink of oblivion in 2011 should not be underestimated either. The party has had an infusion of new talent in the election, and is now in good shape to face the future.

Politics is now going to work very differently as a result of Martin’s strategy. If a majority of TDs adapt well to the new circumstances there is a prospect of the Dáil becoming a far more vibrant and interesting chamber.

The relationship between Kenny and Martin will be critical to the success of the new departure. They have probably met for serious discussions more often in recent weeks than during the entire five-year lifetime of the last Dáil and that in itself is a positive development.

The real challenge, though, will be whether the new politics can work when urgent decisions are needed in response to unexpected events. That is where the relationship between the leaders of the two big parties will be vital.

How the Independents adapt to the stresses of government will be another important factor. The new Ministers are already finding out that the posturing of opposition is easy compared to the hard choices faced by those with the responsibility for governing.

As the new Ministers read themselves into their briefs the brutal side of politics was also on display this week. Labour leader Joan Burton finally faced the inevitable and stood down as party leader after her party's appalling election result.

She took over the leadership less than two years ago when the bulk of her party's TDs panicked after very poor local and European election results and effectively forced Eamon Gilmore to stand down.

However, there was no revival in Labour’s fortunes ,and if anything the change of leadership led to an even worse outcome. In a sense Gilmore was lucky that responsibility for such a disaster was lifted from his shoulders.

The brutality of politics was illustrated in a different way with the publication of the O’Higgins commission report into the allegations by Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe.

That report clearly and unambiguously cleared former minister for justice Alan Shatter and the former Garda commissioner of any wrongdoing in their handling of McCabe's allegations.

Yet those allegations were an important contributory factor in ending Shatter’s ministerial career. He was forced to retire in the spring of 2014 because he was judged a liability for the government, in large part because the McCabe controversy simply wouldn’t go away.

Explaining why Charles Haughey sacked Brian Lenihan from cabinet in 1990, the late PJ Mara remarked: “In politics you end up sacrificing your friends to placate your enemies.”

Controversies

That essentially was what Kenny did to Shatter. The move put the lid on a range of controversies and allowed the government to move on, but it is hard to escape the conclusion that Shatter was wronged.

The Taoiseach could make some amends to Shatter by selecting him as one of his 11 nominees to the Seanad. As well as being the right thing to do it would also add considerable intellectual weight to the Upper House.

It also needs to be said that the media did not cover itself in glory in its treatment of Shatter. He was effectively hounded from office by a media pack baying for blood. What has been notable since the publication of the O’Higgins report is the complete lack of self-analysis by the media about the uncritical way in which so many allegations were bandied about that led to a reforming minister’s downfall.