Kenny’s TDs talk of new party leader

A SMALL group of Fine Gael deputies have discussed an alternative leader to Enda Kenny, according to one of its front bench spokespersons.

There was no obvious plan for a heave against Mr Kenny but a number of senior party figures expressed concern following poll results that showed his popularity has dropped to 24% while his party’s support at 28% has made no gains since the last general election.

After being overtaken by Labour in yesterday’s opinion poll, Fine Gael put on a united front despite the deputy leader, Richard Bruton, telling TV3 that he thinks about leading the party.

Privately, one front bench spokesperson claimed that three or four colleagues had discussed pushing for an alternative leader.

Another said: “The public have made up their minds about Cowen and Enda, and they don’t seem to want either of them.”

Putting on a united front, Enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar insisted Mr Kenny would lead the party into the next election while Simon Coveney said while “there is no point pretending we are happy” it would be “too easy a solution to blame everything on the party leader”.

“In the past few weeks we have lost some momentum and we need to put the party back on track and Fine Gael can get back again,” said the Cork South Central TD.

Mr Varadkar said the party had been focusing on developing policies but “we need to try to connect emotionally” with the electorate.

Louth TD Fergus O’Dowd said while Mr Kenny got on “extremely well with people” on a personal level, his media appearances came across as “a little bit wooden”.

Cork North Central TD, Bernard Allen, said a “sense of complacency” had developed in the party that the next election would “fall into our laps”.

Asked why the party leader Enda Kenny had received such low ratings, Mr Allen said: “Leaders who have the maximum of charisma are the most dangerous because the two leaders that had a lot of charisma were Charlie Haughey and Bertie Ahern.”