Last-ditch offer was not enough
The fledgling deputy was offered the position as its economic planning spokesman last Tuesday, February 2. Party leader Enda Kenny reiterated the offer on Friday, but the former Dublin South deputy said his mind was made up.
Mr Lee said he had not wanted a front-bench position and only wanted an opportunity be able to feed his ideas into the policy.
He said he felt “shut out from the policy formation” and would have had a greater influence outside the political sphere. His final decision was made yesterday morning when he handed his resignation letter to the Clerk of the Dáil.
However, Mr Lee said he first considered a quick exit at the start of the Christmas holiday period.
Evidence of his misgivings emerged in a Christmas-time interview with Gavin Jennings on RTÉ radio. But at the time he suggested his problem was with the Dáil rather than the party and Fine Gael did not pick up on his cry for attention.
“There is an extent to which I could say an awful lot more than I’ve been able to say. I could understand that people might say you get swallowed up, but I don’t think you get swallowed up by the party but by the Oireachtas system,” he told Mr Jennings.
He also said “if” his political career ever ran its course, he could return to RTÉ. Last month he joined Miriam O’Callaghan’s radio show with reporter Charlie Bird. Mr Lee said he would not hang around the Dáil if he was not having influence. The time-frame he referred to was over the next 10 years, not three weeks.
Yesterday, his attack was directly at the party. He said he did not want to be used as a celebrity and to draw a crowd, a role Fine Gael had him fulfil. And he claimed Mr Kenny had misjudged him for thinking his anger was based on the lack of a front-bench role.
Mr Lee said he had not had regular access to the party leadership and its finance spokesman Richard Bruton. He said he had no influence in the party’s policies and had not been approached for his thoughts.
However, the party claimed Mr Lee was just cutting his teeth and acclimatising to political life. And that he was destined for a front-bench role.
The role Mr Kenny offered him was similar to that taken on by Martin O’Donoghue for Fianna Fáil in 1977 who was Taoiseach Charlie Haughey’s specially appointed minister for economic development and planning.
Mr Kenny was planning this as part of a wider reshuffle, the newly departed deputy said.
On the day Mr Lee was elected, the party leader said a reshuffle was on the table within a very short period. But this has never materialised.
Mr Lee said there were “large mutterings” about Mr Kenny’s position but he did not want to be a part of any heave against him.
