FG WARNS FF: IT’S TIME TO DO DEAL

Under-pressure Enda: ‘I wish I didn’t have to face what I have to face’

ENDA Kenny last night revealed the intense pressure he is under as he squared up to Fianna Fáil.

He told a gathering at the Irish Embassy in Washington: ‘Bejaysus, I wish I didn’t have to go back to Ireland to face what I have to face.’

Earlier he told reporters in the US that it was time for Fianna Fáil to help form ‘a government that will last and do its duty in respect of the people’.

And Fine Gael sources at home warned that key pieces of legislation – on paternity leave, the second free pre- school year and bankruptcy reform – would not be enacted to benefit people in autumn, unless Fianna Fáil acts soon.

Those demands were underscored later last night when the Social Democrats joined the growing list of parties to

declare they will support neither party in government. However, a Fianna Fáil spokesman reacted coldly to the Taoiseach’s demand last night, commenting dismissively: ‘We have and always will act responsibly.’

The tension between the only two parties who now seem able to form a government led to one senior opposition member warning that a second election may be on the cards.

Mr Kenny made his call from Washington, as he emerged from a meeting with President Barack Obama. Asked when he would sit down with Mr Martin to open talks, the Taoiseach said he had invited like-minded parties to work with Fine Gael and that his party was setting out its own set of priorities for discussions. These would be finalised next week, he said, ‘and that gives us really the basis for negotiations and discussions about putting a government together’.

The Dáil will vote again on who should be the next taoiseach on April 6.

When asked if those like-minded groups include Fianna Fáil, he said: ‘The Fianna Fáil party is obviously a party that has a responsibility, as well as every single member in the Dáil, to work towards putting that together.’

He added: ‘I hear different stories from Fianna Fáil, when I have my priorities agreed and put in place I have invited them already to work with us to put together a government that will last and do its duty in respect of the people.’

At the same time his party colleagues were saying: ‘ The people want paternity leave. They want the second pre-school year to come in next September as planned and announced in the Budget. And the Dáil voted to reduce the bankruptcy period from three years to one in order to match the situation in Northern Ireland and Britain. These things need to be administered and put in place.

‘Right now they are on hold while everyone awaits a government. If Fianna Fáil drags this out, then it will be seen to be responsible for stalling progress on all these important issues.’

Meanwhile, Social Democrats added to the pressure by announcing that they had ruled out participation in a minority government led by either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

Co-leader Catherine Murphy said the party had come to the conclusion that the current exercise of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael talking to smaller parties and Independents is only postponing the inevitable. She said: ‘It is clear there is no possibility of either a majority or a minority government without some agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and we would actively encourage the two parties to accept that reality.

‘Any discussions regarding policies are meaningless until Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have made a decision about whether or not they can work together in some form of arrangement.’

However, Fianna Fáil was in no mood to respond to pressure, insisting it is concentrating on maximising support for Mr Martin as taoiseach on April 6. It says it will not be distracted by comment as it goes about its business.

With that party refusing to budge on what some of its leading luminaries regard as provocations from an increasingly desperate Fine Gael, desperate to get back into Government, one senior TD – not a member of either of the two main parties – argued that Fine Gael was beginning to feel the pressure.

The source told the Irish Daily Mail yesterday: ‘Fianna Fáil has three things that Fine Gael don’t have – it has the

‘He may feel a second election is best’

money, the momentum and a leader. It may not be very good at governing, but it is the best in Ireland at campaigning. At the moment, Micheál Martin is talking to deputies and groups, but not really talking to them. He has to take his base with him in anything he does, so he is actually talking over the heads of those people to his own Ard Comhairle.

‘He has to be able, ultimately, to make a case that he has tried everything, talked himself hoarse, looked at all the policies on offer, and been unable to put anything together. He has to show he has exhausted all that before he could go to an Ard Fheis and reluctantly recommend coalition, if he really wants that. He may feel he can do best out of a second election. And he may be right. A week ago I would have thought that a grand coalition was the only show in town, but now I am not so sure. Maybe he is ready to gamble.’

Meanwhile, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said on radio yesterday: ‘It seems to me that some people in the opposition seem to be making out that we can govern the country on the basis of backbench motions and parliamentary questions.

‘That’s a load of rubbish. We actually do need a government in place, a government that can take policy decisions, and a government that can make financial commitments, which a caretaker government realistically can’t, having lost its democratic mandate.’

Mr Varadkar confirmed that nobody was looking for ‘a quiet chat behind the scenes’ between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the two big parties had yet to initiate any contact with each other.

But he added: ‘There is actually real business being done. Part of the talks that are happening this week, and I’m involved in some of them, are talks between Fine Gael and Independent TDs, and Fine Gael and some of the smaller parties, to see if we can find enough common ground to form a government, to put together a minority. It’s unlikely we’ll get to a majority with those figures, but the aim is to put together a broad- based minority government which could then get the support of the Dáil. But I do agree that these things can’t go on forever.’

He said it was ‘really premature’ to talk about Fianna Fáil supporting a Fine Gael minority Government. He had already ruled out his own party doing the same for a Fianna Fáil minority administration.

‘We’re in serious discussions now with Independents and smaller parties. We are talking about what could be done to spread the recovery to rural Ireland, in health for example, and political reform. Essentially, what we are doing is we’re taking our manifesto, even

though we didn’t win the election, we got more votes than any other party; and we’re taking their manifestos and seeing what areas of common ground there could be. There are all sorts of different ideas that are being put across.’

Fine Gael yesterday met a group known to some as the ‘Independent Independents’, to distinguish them from members of the Independent Alliance. The group of five has also been referred to as ‘Rural Independents’. The meeting, in Athlone, saw Simon Coveney and Simon Harris hold talks with deputies Michael Collins (Cork South West), Dr Michael Harty (Clare), Denis Naughten (Roscomon Galway), Mattie McGrath (Tipperary) and Noel Grealish (Galway West).

Fianna Fáil met the Social Democrats at Leinster House at 5pm and held further discussions with the two Green Party TDs, Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown) and Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South).

Mr Varadkar will lead for Fine Gael today in a meeting with the Social Democrats trio of Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow), Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West) and Catherine Murphy (Kildare North).

His party’s talks team will also meet members of the Independent Alliance today.

Meanwhile, Gerry Adams accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fail of engaging in a ‘sham fight’ over forming a government. Speaking in the US, the Sinn Féin president said: ‘The two largest conservative parties are using the bogus excuse of Civil War divisions and politics as each tries to outflank the other to get the spoils of government positions.

‘The claim of Civil War divisions doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, because in local councils across the State Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have already been working together i n grand coalitions f or years.

‘Outside of the Dáil the desire to monopolise key positions in local councils and to exclude Sinn Féin and others has long seen Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil set aside personality and political differences and enter into grand coalitions. The two parties control 11 of the 31 local councils.’