‘It was difficult to see through the waves’
The standing ovation that followed his closing speech was a bit of a blur for Enda Kenny who admitted it came with great relief.
There were tears as Senator Paschal Donohoe delivered the papers for a secret ballot that would put to bed the big leadership question for now.
It had been a different story five hours earlier when Mr Kenny entered the room to face 69 other members of his parliamentary party for a tense face off.
Mr Kenny seized control straight away, and just as he has done since the leadership heave got underway five days ago, pulled the rug from under his opponents by setting the ground rules for the meeting.
In his opening speech proposing the motion of confidence in himself, Mr Kenny told colleagues that there would be no bitterness, no personal attacks and only constructive discussion in the contributions.
The agreement before the rest of the meeting got underway is thought to have tempered the inputs of those opposing Mr Kenny.
Because he himself had proposed the motion, Mr Kenny was entitled to speak for 20 minutes at the start. This was followed by a mere four minute opening speech by Richard Bruton.
Before the meeting, both men “were chatting in a very friendly and amicable manner” and, when Bruton rose to his feet, “it was clear how he wasn’t the nakedly ambitious type” according to one source and, perhaps uncomfortable with the occasion, gave a less than convincing performance.
Because of the meeting’s ground rules, those supporting a leadership challenge by the former finance spokesperson were forced into more polite speeches about “the way forward”, while Kenny supporters gave rousing, roaring speeches in favour of his continued leadership.
Those opposing Mr Kenny were “very politically inexperienced and were nervous and unsure about the whole experience” and this came across in their contributions, according to one Kenny supporter,
Despite his plea at the outset, when Mr Kenny rose for the closing speech, he singled out for mention “one by one” each of the nine front-bench spokespeople who had walked onto the plinth of Leinster House to express no confidence in him.
“These mentions didn’t go down too kindly” given his promises to reunite a divided party, according to one former front bench spokesperson.
In his 30 minute closing remarks, Mr Kenny spoke of what he called a “they say” issue surrounding his leadership with most criticism coming from unnamed sources in the media. “They say he doesn’t have charisma, they say he has a weak knowledge of the economy, but who are they?” he asked.
When he finished, almost all of the parliamentary party, including most of those he had singled out for criticism, rose to their feet in a standing ovation.
One supporter said afterwards: “In 30 years of politics, I was never moved so much by a speech, it was something I had seen in private from Enda before but something the public have never seen.”
Enda was victorious. But by how much, only two people know – Senator Paschal Donohoe and Deputy Padraic McCormack, who remarked afterwards: “The ballot papers were disposed of, shredded.”
