Labour TD Pat Rabbitte has said his decision not to contest the next general election was not influenced by his relationship with Tánaiste Joan Burton. In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Rabbitte, who lost his place at Cabinet after Ms Burton's appointment as Labour leader last year, said the Tánaiste did not ask him to run for the party again in Dublin South West.

“No, she didn’t ask me. Maybe she concluded that I was staying on. You’ll have to talk to her,” he said.

Mr Rabbitte insisted his decision was based solely on his age rather than any internal party disagreement. Asked if Ms Burton played a role in his decision to step back from politics, he replied: “No, I can honestly say it was not a factor.

“You don’t make a decision like this based on personality or on peripheral considerations. I have decided I don’t want to be in Dáil Éireann in my 70s.”

The relationship between Mr Rabbitte and Ms Burton has deteriorated since the Tánaiste demoted him from the Cabinet table, where he was minister for communications, energy and natural resources. However, he insisted Ms Burton had his full confidence and would continue to. Mr Rabbitte has been in politics for 26 years but made the decision not to contest the election late on Monday night. He denied he was jumping from a sinking ship.

“What is so surprising about the older members of the party deciding not to contest again? In this business, you cannot win,” he said. “If Ruairí Quinn and myself said we were running again, some media panels would be writing ‘why don’t those two fellas retire, what are they doing contesting at their age?’.”

The former Labour leader said this would be a difficult election for the party and claimed it should be gaining more credit for the economic recovery. “It will be a difficult election for the Labour Party. I share the puzzlement as to why we get 19 per cent of the vote and 90 per cent of the blame,” he said.

“We didn’t crash this economy; we were driving the ambulance that came to rescue the patient who was terminally ill when we whisked him away. People can criticise the ambulance driver but we didn’t crash the economy. We came to save it and I am very happy to say we did a moderately good job in that regard.”

Mr Rabbitte said he would not spend his time criticising the party or its leadership but did admit “a great deal of the hard slog comes to my door”.

His departure follows the decisions of former tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Mr Quinn not to contest the general election.

Asked what the future for Irish politics held, he said: “This is a different era. Everyone is scalded from the financial crash and Irish politics has not adjusted to that. There is a certain amount of chaos out there. The fragmentation that has happened out there might be interesting to observe but in terms of providing an alternative it is dysfunctional . . .

“There is no coherence, there is no common agreement, and there is no ability to agree.”

As for what he would do next, Mr Rabbitte insisted he was going nowhere but would focus for the next 10 months on retaining the seat in Dublin South West. He insisted there was no book in the making and claimed no media outlet had approached him.