Will Kenny fold before open goal?

Fine Gael are keen to promote their leader as a manager rather than a star performer, writes Shaun Connolly.

THE upbeat buzz at Fine Gael’s national conference exuded the air of a party that believes the next election is an open goal.

Though desperate not to appear to be taking voters for granted, there seemed to be only one lingering doubt threatening the faithful gathered in Wexford — that rather than taking the winning shot, Enda Kenny may instead fall flat on his back.

Though ahead of Fianna Fáil in the opinion polls for the first time since 1982, Mr Kenny’s personal ratings continue to be a source for concern for Fine Gael.

The emphasis was very much on a collective team spirit at the party’s national conference in a not so subtle acknowledgement that FG realises Mr Kenny still lacks gravitas with a large swathe of the electorate.

While Labour’s Eamon Gilmore completely overshadows his front bench colleagues, with Mr Kenny it can often appear to be the other way around, with health spokesman James Reilly and finance supremo Richard Bruton making more of an impact on the public consciousness.

Fine Gael, with their telling conference slogan “A new team, ready to govern”, hope to turn this negative into a positive by promoting Mr Kenny as a manager of talent rather than a star performer.

But a captain still needs to deliver the goods.

While his leader’s speech was a marked improvement on past efforts, it still smacked of intention without much substance.

Mr Kenny tried to seize the political initiative with his call to suspend the national pay deal for a year — and while it sounded quite radical on paper, considering the agreement will already be frozen for 11 months, the extra four weeks urged by the FG leader is hardly a bold move challenging to shake-up the political topography.

Mr Kenny had plenty to draw on if he chose to — a litany of health service horror stories, a botched budget, a remote, tax raising Taoiseach who replaced a man who resigned early following extraordinary evidence to the Mahon corruption probe, yet the FG leader merely managed to deliver a kick to the Government’s shins rather than the thorough going over the polls show voters believe Brian Cowen deserves.

Though there was tough sounding talk on the public services and even a vague nod towards forced redundancies in the health service, FG knows both ideas — as well as the party’s stance on the national wage agreement — would not be acceptable to Labour, and without Labour there is no path to power, whether FG leads the polls or not.

And with Finance Minister Brian Lenihan conceding there will be another round of “deep cuts” next year, as well as possible income tax hikes, it all points to an earlier than expected election — especially if you throw in the uncertainty of the Lisbon II outcome and fact the economic and financial landscape has altered so dramatically since Fianna Fáil was narrowly re-elected in May 2007.

Faint murmurs of a call for a national government to deal with the crisis have no echoes within FG; the party senses blood.

With an economic crisis, a Taoiseach that has failed to either connect with voters’ fears or communicate he has a exit plan to lead the country out of danger, if Fine Gael don’t triumph next time out, then it is doubtful they ever will.

The goal may look deceptively open, but however much FG work as a team, it is still down to Mr Kenny to show he has the skill to deliver victory and put the ball in the back of the net.