Enda Kenny tells Independents new government will last

Acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny last night assured Independent TDs that a minority government led by him would last. He attended a meeting with Independent Alliance TDs on Friday night with Ministers Simon Coveney, Simon Harris and Paschal Donohoe.

The Independent Alliance – Shane Ross, Finian McGrath, Kevin "Boxer" Moran, Sean Canney, Michael Fitzmaurice and John Halligan – is being courted by Fine Gael as part of its attempts to build a minority government.

The TDs attending the meeting were Mr Ross, Mr McGrath, Mr Moran and Mr Canney. The group had called for Fianna Fáil to commit to supporting three budgets that would be implemented by the minority government.

Commitment

In recent negotiations Fianna Fáil gave Fine Gael that commitment, and

Mr Kenny

is understood to have told the Independents that any government led by Fine Gael would last on that basis.

He told the Independents the timeframe would have to be agreed between himself and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, but this was likely to be a formality.

Negotiations will continue over the weekend, and more structured, intensive talks will begin between Fine Gael and the Independents on Monday.

‘Get stuck in’

Other Independents outside of the Independent Alliance will also be included in the talks. Fine Gael is likely to talk to 14 Independents in all.

Mr McGrath last night said the Independent Alliance wanted to “get stuck in” straight away, adding that there was no appetite for a drawn-out process similar to the previous rounds of talks. “We won’t be hanging around like the big parties.”

The Independents were not given a copy of the written agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil last night – it is understood to run to four pages and is still being finalised – but were briefed on an outline of its contents.

Earlier on Friday the Independent Alliance met with officials from the Department of Communications for a briefing on the status of the National Broadband Plan, which had reportedly been delayed. Rural broadband has been identified as one of the key issues by Independent TDs.