New Fine Gael leader Simon Harris has ruled out an early general election, stating he wants the Coalition to run its full term.
“I want to get this government back to work, I want to deliver for people, I want to implement the programme for government and I want to renew my party right across the country,” he said in Athlone after he was named successor to Leo Varadkar.
“It is my view and my intention that this government should run full term,” he told reporters. “We have a lot of work to do and I don’t think there needs to be any mystique around my intention where you guys ask me every second day where my head is at.”
Mr Harris was formally elected as the new leader of the party at a convention in Athlone to ratify Fine Gael candidates for the Midlands-North West constituency in the forthcoming European elections. No other candidate had put their name forward to run for the leadership by the time the closing date for nominations closed at lunchtime on Sunday.
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Earlier, Mr Harris said it is time for the party to reset and reconnect following the departure of Leo Varadkar and he pledged to try win back the trust and support of those who no longer voted for it.
He also said he wanted his party “to fight against populism and deliberate polarisation”.
In his first speech after being named as Fine Gael leader on Sunday, Mr Harris promised the party would back businesses, especially small businesses and that it stood “for making work pay”.
He also insisted that Fine Gael stood for law and order. He said it was “on the side of An Garda Síochána, where our streets are safe and crime is never allowed go unchecked”.
To huge applause of supporters at a party convention in Athlone, he vowed to “take back our flag” and said it was a shame to see the tricolour draped in recent days over the coffin of “a Garda killer”, in reference to IRA member Pearse McAuley, who died earlier this month.
He also said that Fine Gael “stands for supporting education and educational pathways for all – to ensure equality of opportunity is not a slogan at election time but is a value that is woven through everything we do”.
He said the party backed balanced regional development and promised those in rural Ireland that “we have your back”.
Mr Harris also said that an economy had to work for people so that they could feel it in their own household economies, on their farms and in their businesses, around the kitchen table, and in the lives they can see ahead for their children.
He said Fine Gael spoke about security as one of its values. However, he said this did not just mean “security as a nation”.
“It means security for individuals and for families. The security a person or a family feels when they buy their own home. The security of care for people when they need it most. The security of a health service with improved outcomes. Security on our streets.”
He also said there should be “a fair and firm system when it comes to migration”.
He said the party believed “we need now to move from an emergency response to the migration crisis to a more planned, sustainable model”.
On foreign policy Mr Harris said Fine Gael would always support democracy and freedom, “and we condemn the horrific, illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
He said Fine Gael “stands as a party unafraid to speak truth to power about the catastrophe we are witnessing in Gaza and to voice in no uncertain terms the moral outrage of the Irish people”.
“I repeat my calls today for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of all hostages, an end to violence in the Middle East and a political process to bring about a two state solution.”
Mr Harris said he knew he would not get everything right in his role as leader. However, he said he would “bring energy and renewal to this party”.
“In the hours, days and weeks ahead I will be going back to the decent, hardworking grassroots of this party and listening carefully to what you want to see happen next. I will act, and act decisively, but I will always listen,” he said. “I will never lose touch with people in this party or people across the country.”
Mr Harris secured the backing of an overwhelming majority of party colleagues on Thursday last week.
By the time the Wicklow TD officially put his name forward on RTÉ's Six One News, he had been publicly endorsed by more than 35 of the party’s 54-strong parliamentary party.
His prospective rivals – Simon Coveney, Helen McEntee, Paschal Donohoe and Heather Humphreys – had all announced they would not be contesting the leadership race.
Mr Harris will be elected taoiseach when the Dáil returns on April 9th.
[ Simon Harris takes the reins of a party in troubleOpens in new window ]
Speaking on RTÉ last week, Mr Harris said he wanted to bring energy and vigour to the role. “I want to really reconnect with our party right across the country. I want to get us back to core principles and deliver on the issues that matter to people in their daily lives.
“I want to be the next leader of Fine Gael. I’m ready to step up and I’m ready to serve.”
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week programme, Michael Ring called on him to abandon the Government’s hate speech legislation and ditch plans for the late night sale of alcohol, claiming that Fine Gael had been “too left for too long”.
Mr Harris had a “very difficult job ahead” to return Fine Gael to its core values, Mr Ring said, adding: “We are not a left wing party, we are a centre party and Fine Gael has to move back into the centre again, and more to the right.
“We need to go back to core issues, law and order, we need to be doing more on law and order,” he said.
“We need to go back to small businesses and farmers and we need to forget about a lot of these social issues we have been raising over the last few years that have been annoying people and upsetting people.”
The Government should abandon plans to extend the hours during which alcohol could be sold, and abandon the Government’s legislation on hate speech.
“I want the hate bill gone, and I want to get rid of that daft idea of opening pubs all night. I will be stronger this time and I won’t be allowing Fine Gael to go into these kinds of social issues that people don’t want,” Mr Ring said.
Immigration policy was a problem for the party going forward, he said.
“It is a big issue that hurt us very much in the recent referendum. It’s an issue that’s hurting us on the ground. You cannot bring in 120,000 people and not have housing for them.
People could not get rented accommodation or buy their own homes, he said, adding: “We need more social housing”.
“We need to win back the core support that we have lost. We need to stay with our values, and get away from the left ... Our core values are not abortion, our core values are not to open pubs all night, our core values are not about hate speech.
“Our core values is to make sure we support small businesses which are in difficulty now, our core values are to get the public services that they need, to build houses, to look after people in this country,” Mr Ring said.
“Simon Harris now has an opportunity, and if he doesn’t take that opportunity Fine Gael and Simon Harris will pay a big price over the next couple of months if we don’t move back into the role that we always held”.
Also speaking on the This Week programme was Minister of State for European Affairs Peter Burke, who was asked whether he agreed with the remarks made by Mr Ring.
“I think Fine Gael is a broad church. My view very firmly is we are a party of the progressive centre,” he said, adding that he believed “Harris is a man of the progressive centre”.
Asked whether he thought the hate speech should go, Mr Burke said: “I would have concerns around aspects of it” but ultimately it was for Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to work on.
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