A visibly nervous Taoiseach dodges the questions

On Thursday night, Enda Kenny gave a rare television interview to RTÉ’s Prime Time. Afterwards many viewers felt none the wiser as to what our head of government was thinking. We take a look back at the Taoiseach’s peculiar performance: After a review of the highs and lows of Mr Kenny’s four years in power, Miriam O’Callaghan began by asking why, with the economy apparently on the up, Fine Gael was ‘scrapping with Sinn Féin in the mid-twenties’ in the polls? A nervous Taoiseach gave the first in a long line of obtuse answers: ‘The choices we had to make were very difficult and affected hundreds of thousands of people across the country and still do. But I’m glad to say that we’ve made a lot of progress.’ Verdict: This answer failed to address the question. O’Callaghan then asked how come the Government had made such a ‘mess of Irish Water’? Cocking his head to one side, he again fudged. ‘Well, I’d be the first to say we didn’t get everything right… we now see the evidence of the scale of the challenge.’ Verdict: The Taoiseach appeared to have considered the question – but there was no substance in his answer. Again he talked about the problems his Government inherited.

GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL

O’Callaghan pressed him – did he think it was fair that bankers aren’t in jail and water protestors are? The Taoiseach looked slightly startled before answering: ‘The courts are the completely independent body that made these decisions and we abide by that law. We’ve a banking inquiry going on into these very complex… issues. Verdict: The Taoiseach implied he did think it was fair the protestors were in prison as this was what the law had decided. But instead of a defence of law and order, which might play well with some, it came across as an evasion.

THE TAKE HOME

At this point, the Taoiseach was noticeably twisting in his chair. O’Callaghan asked him when families would see ‘any shred of evidence in their take-home pay’ that the economy was recovering?

Again he chose to ignore the question in this answer: ‘The reason we had to make all of those decisions which were very difficult for everyone in the country was that you could grow your economy by creating jobs.’ Verdict: At this point, O’Callaghan is becoming impatient. She responds to his answer, ‘that’s not what I asked you,’ a phrase no doubt being repeated in sitting rooms across the nation.

GREECE LIGHTNING

O’Callaghan then asked the Taoiseach why he wasn’t supporting Greece’s attempts to get a write-down. Kenny, at this point dry mouthed, replied that ‘Ireland is in a different position to Greece.’ ‘We understand the humanitarian difficulties they have. We extended our bail-out at the end of 2013, the fastest growing economy in Europe.’ At this point he again began to speak about his Government’s record at job creation, a theme he returned to over and over. Verdict: Following the Taoiseach’s failure to answer the questions, O’Callaghan asked him the same question again and again to no avail.

SEVENTH TIME A CHARM?

O’Callaghan followed it up by asking Mr Kenny seven times whether Ireland had ever asked for a debt write-down. Seven times he evaded the question. Again he began to list his Government’s achievements and what he called his success at leveraging deals with the IMF. He did better when O’Callaghan launched what he thought was a personal attack. ‘What was the point of being a poster girl for austerity… if we got skewered by Europe?’ she asked. ‘I reject that Miriam, we were able to buy out our IMF loans... we negotiated €50bn less in borrowing requirements.’ Verdict: For once he sounded as though he believed in what he was saying.

STRAIGHT ANSWER

When O’Callaghan asked him when the same-sex marriage referendum would take place, he gave a straight answer for the first time: ‘It’s going to be on 22 May.’ Verdict: Another engagement with a question. Unfortunately this was the only clear answer in the whole interview.

SOUND AND FURY

An Taoiseach fluffed his lines again minutes later when O’Callaghan asked him about a comment made in a newspaper that day that said he was good at speaking at length without saying anything. As if to prove the point, he ignored it. He filibustered with the following: ‘Well you know we’ve had to deal with some difficult conditions over the last four years. We’ve dealt with issues that were swept under the carpet for a long time like the Magdalene Laundries and pyrite or Priory Hall, the mothers and babies homes… These are not easy things to deal with and they’ve all been dealt with by government.’ Verdict: Beyond parody. The Magdalene Laundry campaigners, for example, have begun to question his bona fides two years after his emotional Dáil speech.

BASIC INTERVIEW QUESTION

O’Callaghan decided to finish by asking what he considers to have been his biggest failure.

After trying to go off on another tangent and being pulled up by O’Callaghan, he ahhed and emmed. ‘I don’t contemplate failure,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s perfect, nor am I and all the achievements we set out in our programme haven’t been achieved yet, the job is not finished....’ Verdict: He appeared unprepared for the question that seasoned job interviewees will recognise immediately.

OVERALL

If the Taoiseach was advised to steer every answer back to a few themes, ie the economic mess his Government inherited, their success in job creation and the return to economic growth, it was a strategy that backfired.

He gave the impression of not being able to deal with questions that were on the whole straightforward. And in a debate setting, he would have left his jaw exposed on a number of occasions.