‘I intend to serve another full term if re-elected’
ENDA Kenny will serve as party leader until he is on the brink of this 70th birthday, he said yesterday.
The Taoiseach, who reaches the pension age of 65 next birthday, says he intends – if his Government is re-elected – to serve the full five-year term as Taoiseach.
Mr Kenny made the remarks in a Morning Ireland radio interview, quashing a suggestion that he could step down as Taoiseach and party leader in the middle of the next term of office, allowing a successor to bed down in time for Election 2021.
‘People put dates on any kind of comment that you make,’ Mr Kenny said, when asked if that as what he intended. ‘Actually, I want to win this election.
He said: ‘I intend to win, to lead the next Government and to serve a full term.’
He repeated to interviewer Cathal MacCoille: ‘I intend to serve a full-term as Taoiseach. God knows what the future holds.’
In August, the Taoiseach appeared to correct Government chief whip Paul Kehoe, who said the Taoiseach would go on and on – serving for another five years and thereafter.
The next day, Mr Kenny suggested loyalist Mr Kehoe had been over-zealous. His remarks had been made with a lot of ‘poetic licence,’ the Taoiseach said. He said then: ‘I have no intention of staying beyond the remit of the next Government to be Taoiseach,’ fuelling a belief that he could step aside at some point during the next Dáil term.
The Fine Gael leader now appears to believe that any suggestion of his going early could leave him as something of a lame duck from 2017 onwards – hence his move to end speculation.
‘My intention is to fight the election, to win the election and to bring Fine Gael and Labour back into government, continue to secure the recovery, provide stability and to serve a full term,’ he said.