FitzGerald ‘doesn’t rate’ Kenny, say FG strategists

FINE GAEL strategists have told of their annoyance with Garret FitzGerald in a new book, saying the former Taoiseach clearly “doesn’t rate” the current party leader, Enda Kenny.

The strategists also speak of an “intellectual snobbery” within “certain sections” of Fine Gael that leads to disdainful views of Mr Kenny.

“There is an intellectual snobbery there,” one says. “Kenny is a bright man, well-educated, but within certain sections of Fine Gael there is a certain south Dublin snobbery.”

The comments are recounted in Fine Gael – Party at the Crossroads, an account of the party’s resurgence under Mr Kenny written by academic and former political correspondent Kevin Rafter.

The book recounts how Mr Kenny merited only “a single passing reference” in Mr FitzGerald’s memoirs.

“Within the Kenny team today there is a privately spoken annoyance with the former party leader,” the book states.

It then proceeds to quote an unnamed senior party strategist who says: “He doesn’t rate Enda. There has hardly been a mention of Enda Kenny or his achievements as party leader in Garret’s newspaper columns.”

The book says the annoyance within Mr Kenny’s team “only increased” with Mr FitzGerald’s declaration in August last than an early general election was not in the national interest.

Mr FitzGerald made that suggestion in his Irish Times column, saying the Government needed to survive until the end of the year in order to implement its budgetary proposals and its measures to deal with the banking crisis.

“After these two measures have been successfully implemented, if the Dáil or the electorate so decided, there could then safely be a change of government. But in my view it would not be helpful for that to happen within the crucial three months ahead,” Mr FitzGerald wrote. “The opposition parties should be the first to recognise this. No worse fate could befall an opposition than to precipitate themselves into government by defeating measures, the rejection of which could throw our state into the hands of the IMF.”

In a more recent column, however, Mr FitzGerald wrote more forcefully that the Government should be replaced once the budget and banking measures were pushed through.

“Once this Government has taken the necessary first steps to start undoing some of the damage inflicted on our economy, it would be better for it to be replaced,” he wrote.

In the same column, Mr FitzGerald praised both Fine Gael and Labour for agreeing with the Government that a fiscal adjustment of circa €4bn had to be made.

The only Fine Gael politician he referred to by name in the column was deputy leader Richard Bruton, writing: “Between the 2002 and 2007 general elections, Richard Bruton had courageously led Fine Gael in criticising some of Fianna Fáil’s damaging policy decisions.”