Kenny under fire

GEORGE LEE has thrown a land mine under Enda Kenny’s leadership of Fine Gael by quitting the party and confirming there are “large mutterings” about the leader’s position.

Fine Gael handlers scrambled, however, to limit the damage to Mr Kenny after Mr Lee announced his shock departure from both the party and the Dáil after just eight months as a TD.

They said the party leader had offered Mr Lee a front-bench role last week and regarded the former RTÉ economics editor as a ministerial certainty in any future Fine Gael government.

But Mr Lee said the front-bench role had only been offered “under duress” when Mr Kenny realised he was serious about resigning.

“The front bench was what he thought I wanted. What I wanted was an input into [economic] policy,” he said. “I had zero impact, influence or otherwise on Fine Gael policy.”

Mr Lee painted a picture of being “shut out” from policy formulation and said he had had just “two to three” conversations with the party’s finance spokesman, Richard Bruton, since being elected.

The loss of arguably the party’s biggest star is likely to intensify doubts about Mr Kenny’s leadership after a number of unconvincing media performances and slight signs of recovery for Fianna Fáil in recent polls.

Last week, Mr Kenny admitted to front-bench TDs that he “could have done better” in the media appearances, in an apparent bid to prevent dissatisfaction with his leadership growing.

But Mr Lee did nothing last night to quell rumours about a possible heave, saying: “There are certainly lots of large mutterings at the moment in relation to the leader’s position.”

He also repeatedly refused to state Mr Kenny was the right man to lead the country, stating: “That’s for other people to decide.”

Mr Kenny stayed away from the airwaves yesterday, confining himself to a written statement in which he said he was “greatly saddened” by Mr Lee’s decision.

“I had anticipated a very important role for George in the coming period with Fine Gael after a time of settling into a new career in politics,” Mr Kenny said.

Senior Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery said Mr Lee “didn’t cut it” as a TD, while front-bench TD Lucinda Creighton said his decision to resign “beggars belief”.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said Fine Gael created their own problem. “They sold him as an economic messiah and obviously he accepted their word on that and felt that his messianic economic qualities were not being recognised,” he told Today FM.

A poll of approximately 16,000 people on RTÉ’s Liveline programme yesterday saw 83% of its listeners state Mr Lee was right to quit.