Enda Kenny’s long goodbye finally nears its end

The firm expectation in Government circles and the wider political world around Leinster House and its environs is that Taoiseach Enda Kenny will announce his departure from office in the coming weeks, with a new Fine Gael leader expected to be in place by the end of May, or early June.

This long-anticipated step will alter the disposition of the Government and change the context of our current politics. It will reset the relationships on which the Government depends – between Fine Gael and Independents, and between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It has the potential to revivify the Government, but also to disassemble it. It should be an interesting few weeks; it is also an important period for the country.

The Taoiseach attends the European Council summit in Brussels today and the Dáil returns on Tuesday. However, with engagements in Canada on Thursday morning – where he will meet the equally dashing Justin Trudeau – Kenny is not expected to attend the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday evening.

So the incessant gossip and rumour mill which comprises much political communication when it comes to the delicate matter of changing a party leader (and believe me, it is incessant on this subject) suggests he will face a deadline of the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday week, May 10th, to indicate his intention to depart to his parliamentary party colleagues. This has been suggested to me with some force by a Fine Gael Minister in recent days.

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Defied predictions

Kenny could, of course, decide to keep buggering on (as Winston Churchill put it), often the best course for politicians in a fix. He has certainly defied deadlines and predictions hereabouts and elsewhere that he would be gone by now.

But Kenny is not in a fix now. He was in a fix in February, during the mess that was his handling of the Garda whistleblower controversy, episode 47. He got out of that fix by promising to go. He cannot unmake that promise without rebellion; and he cannot delay making good on it indefinitely. Or for much longer.

“Keep predicting it, ye’ll be right at some stage,” says a Government figure, mockingly. He’s right. We will.

There are, actually, arguments for Kenny to stay, and entirely and conspicuously missing from the Fine Gael narrative pushing for change has been even the most cursory nod to the public interest.

His Government and officials have achieved as much in the Brexit process so far as they could reasonably have been expected to – and more, perhaps. He is one of the longest-serving European leaders, and his influence in the European People’s Party is a significant asset.

But the arguments for keeping him are not even a minority sport in Fine Gael. Notwithstanding the fact that the drive to change the leader is being driven exclusively by Fine Gael’s political interests – his TDs want a different leader for the next election – it is no less powerful and immediate for that.

Every TD tells the microphones that the Taoiseach will choose his own time to go, and they have too much respect for him to suggest when he should depart. When the microphones are off they add: as long as he goes soon. That is not a position confined to the awkward squad; it is one shared by most of the parliamentary party, most of the Cabinet and both of the leadership contenders.

So change cometh, and cometh right soon. The leadership election in Fine Gael will take place, I am told, over a truncated three-week period. If it features a debate in the party – as it well might – on who will be tougher with Fianna Fáil, it will make rebooting the coalition under a new leader difficult.

Cautious

The Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, does not currently want an election, though some of his front bench do. The Fine Gael leadership debate may well increase the strength of the election lobby in Fianna Fáil, which does not share Martin’s caution on the matter. The Fianna Fáil leader knows he has one shot at winning an election and becoming taoiseach, and that is making him even more cautious than he normally is; that is not a consideration for some of his lieutenants.

When the new leader is in place, the Independents in Government will surely seek a new deal, new concessions. That has been their modus operandi in Government so far, and it has been – on their terms – successful.

There will be new Ministers, new staff, new advisers. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will almost certainly depart, leaving an enormous hole behind him. Led by a new generation, the Government will look and sound completely different after the leadership changes. It will change the atmosphere not just in Government, and around Leinster House and in politics generally. New departures, policies and initiatives will become possible. And it will all make politics more combustible.

Broadly, the Government has gone through three phases: the rocky initial opening, which lasted until the budget, the period of stabilisation and the recent slowdown phase which began when Kenny signalled that he would be departing. It is now nearing the end of that third phase. The transition to the next one will not be dull.