DON’T MISS
Neither Nama or Leo will topple OAPs
THE clamour started again last week. The same handful of backbenchers no one has ever heard of, and one or two more Fine Gaelers without jobs in government, stepped up to say Kenny had to go. The “and Leo must take over” is silent in that sentence. The media is only too happy to jump on this because the media likes change and the media likes Leo — Leo is like them, all modern and metropolitan. So Kenny is written off. Might make it to just after the Budget, might make it to the New Year, but ultimately doomed.
Kenny had, we were told, incensed the party by casually announcing that he would be around for a reshuffle next year and another few budgets. He incensed everyone by announcing he had his mojo back. Cringe! How Austin Powers! Sexual overtones! There was an ageism underlying it all. And of course Enda, a countryman talking about his mojo, contrasted sharply with metropolitan Leo.
No one thought to mention that Kenny actually sounded energised. No one thought to mention that it was refreshing to hear Kenny being upfront about not enjoying the election. No one thought to wonder about the notion of this man going away for the summer and clearly regenerating.
I’d be no apologist for Kenny but I thought the mojo thing was interesting, because it brought me back into sitting in a room with Kenny towards the end of the election campaign, after it had become clear that it was all going pear-shaped. That day he started altering the message away from ‘keep the recovery going’, and more towards making sure everyone started benefitting from the recovery.
But you sensed he knew himself that it was too late at that point; the momentum was with Fianna Fail and its promise of a fairer society. That’s where the zeitgeist was. Everyone had decided what they wanted was better public services, and Fine Gael had missed that. Whether the party will be thanked for delivering a Budget that does what we said we wanted — no tax cuts and more services — remains to be seen.
He seemed thoughtful that day, but introverted and downbeat. The banter with his team was slightly forced. I realise now what I took for thoughtfulness that day was actually a mixture of thoughtfulness and tiredness, flatness. You wouldn’t go so far as to say depressed, but Enda was not a man enjoying the election.
And there’s no doubt, whatever he did in his summer hibernation, he seems to be back with a bounce, and it was a bounce and energy that worked well for him over his years as Taoiseach, even if some of us were cynical about it.
If it’s up to him, Enda Kenny is going nowhere until he has seen out the three budgets he stresses he has a signed agreement and mandate to see through. We’ve been here before, this clamour among the media, and it usually dissipates as soon as something better comes along.
But then, it may not be up to Kenny. Maybe Leo or Simon will take the initiative. What do you reckon? Leo, for his part, is not stupid. And while many Fine Gaelers like that he is shiny and modern and media-friendly, they worry too. They worry that in a leadership battle, up against, say Simon, who has a family and understands the struggles of the ordinary people, Leo, for all that we love the gays now, might not play well with a lot of people. This is not to say there is a homophobia towards Leo, but there is a worry he is not as relatable as Simon for traditional FG voters. There is a feeling too that Leo needs more time to prove himself. They worry in Fine Gael that Leo needs more time to acquire substance, a CV, more distance from his time in health. They worry too that right now there is a vacuum at the heart of the Leo enterprise that could be exposed if he becomes leader too quickly.
Simon Coveney is probably someone who has put similar demands on himself. Coveney has a kind of crown-prince notion, that before he is ready to rule, he needs to do something substantial in the real world. So Coveney tackling the housing crisis is the equivalent of William or Harry doing their stints in the army or piloting helicopters. Coveney will want, for himself, to see out the housing project before he decides he is fit to lead. And funnily enough, that will take two years at least. Or about three budgets. Furthermore Kenny is said to feel that both Simon and Leo need to prove themselves before they are ready to step up. So in terms of the human beings, the personalities in that troika, the status quo probably suits everyone.
The other two players in this are Noonan and Martin. At this stage there is almost a sense that Noonan is kept going, almost Weekend at Bernie’s style, because he is an important talisman for Fine Gael, and because he is seen as Kenny’s brain. If Noonan goes, the theory is, Kenny has to go. Hence Noonan has been kept in situ, even though he is not operating at full mojo.
The Nama inquiries, we are told, could do fatal damage to Noonan. In fact the reality is that the tide could turn very quickly on the Nama inquiries. It’s not as if any of this is a shock anyway. This newspaper, among others, has been questioning the effectiveness of Nama since it was set up. But you’d have to wonder how much appetite people have for multiple inquiries by the dead hand of the state into business dealings that had to be, by necessity, conducted in an opportunistic fashion by men who didn’t always act like civil servants.
People are already losing interest in the Nama story. There is a general acceptance that Nama could have done better, but really, most of us, much like Noonan, want to consign Nama to the dustbin of history. The Nama guys were hired to not act like civil servants, and being out in the real world usually involves leaving something on the table for the next guy in any deal, so you know, do we really need to waste a load of time and money to figure out that was what happened?
While there are doubtless scams to be uncovered here or there, and while Noonan no doubt lost us money by pushing Nama to sell assets in a rising market, Noonan will probably be long gone by the time anything from those inquiries comes back to bite him. And even if he does go quickly for other reasons, Kenny can easily outlast him by a year or two. In terms of mojo, of the two, Kenny definitely looks like a man with a bit more left in the tank.
Given that Micheal Martin is sitting in a sweet spot for now and that Kenny is an essential part of that set-up, he certainly won’t be forcing Kenny out.
So there you go, look at this on a human level, and look at the principal players, and you can only conclude that Enda Kenny and his mojo are going nowhere for now.
‘There is almost a sense that Noonan is kept going, Weekend at Bernie’s style, because he is a talisman’