Blundering Enda is lucky all his rivals are so weak

THERE is something of a ‘street angel, house devil’ about Enda Kenny. Foreigners tend to see him as agreeable and safe, while the majority of Irish voters are now all too aware of the Taoiseach’s shortcomings. Yet they will re-elect him on the ‘devil-you-know’ principle in the upcoming general election rather than risk their regained prosperity on an untried leader.

His second coming as Taoiseach will end Fianna Fáil’s seven-decade reign as the State’s most popular party – and confirm Enda Kenny as the most successful Fine Gael leader in history. But Kenny needs reminding that his success owes much to the absence of a talented alternative leader in his own and other political parties.

And before the public relations blitzkrieg kicks in, let’s not forget that the triumphalist Kenny has a history littered with bad judgments and foolish decisions.

The rot set in 13 days after he was voted in as Taoiseach in 2011, when the Moriarty tribunal report made serious findings about former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry.

LOWRY served with Kenny in Fine Gael’s coalition with Labour that gave Esat Digifone, a Denis O’Brien company that donated funds to Fine Gael, the biggest licence ever awarded by the State. Judge Michael Moriarty found that Lowry had benefited by nearly €1m when he helped deliver the contract to O’Brien’s company.

Lowry and O’Brien have both denied any wrongdoing but neither challenged the tribunal’s findings in court. Then yesterday, the Irish Times’ front-page headline read: ‘CAB seeks to question O’Brien on tribunal findings’. So close to the statute of limitations, it appears to be a very late move by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Yet the Government said it accepted the findings of the Moriarty report that appeared to make the biggest accusation of corruption in the history of the State – just 13 days after it assumed office. And this Garda response comes weeks before an election.

Anyone who read the Fennelly report would also wonder how Mr Kenny could say that he did not sack Garda Commissioner Callinan, who had become a political liability. A manageable problem about phone calls from Garda stations became a crisis and a senior civil servant was sent to the commissioner’s house before midnight. Callinan was gone the next morning.

Justice minister Alan Shatter was sacrificed too.

The two biggest parties’ historic reputations have been reversed: Fine Gael has assumed Fianna Fáil’s standing as the ‘can-do’ party to deal with the economy. Another downside, though, to the Kenny years is the questioning of Fine Gael’s commitment to personal integrity. Broken election promises and Kenny’s deathbed concession for a secret ballot to elect the ceann comhairle in the next Dáil are testaments to a failed reformer.

Still, Fine Gael appears to be the overwhelming choice of the coping classes paying steep mortgages and private health insurance. But is Michael Noonan not more convincing in finance than Enda Kenny’s stage-managed excursions into the economy? And where are his closest allies when he was elected Taoiseach – James Reilly, Alan Shatter and Phil Hogan?

Volatility and abrupt endings of friendships have reflected the quality of his professional judgment of colleagues. By their actions we will judge them.