Former Labour tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said some Fine Gael politicians have a tribal tendency to take credit for Coalition Government successes.

The ex-Labour leader and former minister for foreign affairs also conceded that he probably spent too much time focused on his job and not enough time promoting what he did between 2011 and 2014.

Interviewed for the Irish Times Inside Politics podcast, Mr Gilmore said Labour had "an issue with Fine Gael" about how Ireland's exit from the bailout would be announced and managed.

“Certainly I had a sense that, yeah, when it came to announcing good news, Fine Gael were very quick to grab the limelight and grab the microphone,” he said.

In his newly published book, Inside the Room: The untold story of Ireland's crisis government, Mr Gilmore writes about some on the Fine Gael side of Government "turning tribal" by seizing on every piece of good news and exploiting it for the party's sole advantage. Asked if he believed Fine Gael was still in tribal mode, Mr Gilmore replied: "Yes I think they do have a tendency to take the glory and take the praise."

Mr Gilmore said Labour had taken a disproportionate share of the blame for some of the difficult decisions, but this was often the case for the smaller party in a coalition. He acknowledged he was often criticised for spending a lot of time abroad when he was minister for foreign affairs.

Public eye

“I think probably what is more accurate is that I wasn’t in the public eye and I wasn’t probably doing as much press and . . . doing as much kind of public announcements as perhaps I should have been.

“I probably spent too much time doing the job and not enough time promoting it.”

Mr Gilmore resigned as Labour leader in the aftermath of the local and European elections of 2014.

Hear the interview with Eamon Gilmore at irishtimes.com/podcasts.