Charity contract proves one too many for Enda

FINALLY, a way to avoid the phoniness of a politician on the prowl for votes — a humble clipboard.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was traversing Kildare yesterday touting for his election candidates.

As he walked around the likes of Kildare Town, Athy and Cill, it seemed he wanted to stop for a word and shake the hand of every local in sight. But there was one person he couldn’t get away from quickly enough.

In Naas, a charity representative with a clipboard asked if he had two minutes to spare. To sign up to a regular commitment, a contract of sorts.

Enda scarpered.

If his Fine Gael running mate, Mayo football manager John O’Mahony, needs a few fast forwards for this year’s championship, Enda would fit the bill judging by yesterday’s roadrunner impersonation. A vampire confronted by sunlight couldn’t have disappeared into the ether so quickly.

“No good, no good,” the representative said with a rueful smile.

But then, in fairness to Enda, there’s a limit on the amount of commitments a single person can make.

This is the man who only on Monday signed his ‘Contract for a Better Ireland’, essentially a list of promises on public services and the like which he says he will meet as Taoiseach or step aside. Adding to his already numerous commitments would put the poor man at risk of falling over.

But the charity rep was the exception. Enda was glad to meet everyone else. For the most part, they seemed glad to meet him too — one woman attending a wedding even invited him to come for dessert.

An elderly couple might have been forgiven for getting confused, though, when Enda appeared to give credit to Fianna Fáil. He acknowledged the Government had met its commitment of raising the pension. “In fairness, they said €200 and it’s now €209,” he said.

But he was less than complimentary on other issues. In Athy, Enda visited a green field with Kildare South candidates Alan Gillis and Richard Daly. The field had been selected as the site for a school promised by the Government in 1999.

Enda and Alan sat at a table and chairs in the middle of the field, knee deep in grass, as Richard took to a wipeboard and, in teacher-like fashion, brought his “students” up to date on the Government’s failure to deliver the school.

“One of the fundamentals of good government is the ability to keep one’s promises and to stand by one’s word,” Enda said afterward. “The hallmark of this administration has been one of a litany of broken promises. My intention, through the Contract for a Better Ireland, is to put an end to the era of broken promises.”

His handlers must hope the electorate doesn’t have the same aversion to signing that contract as Enda did when confronted with the charity equivalent.