FG reshuffle media team for election battles ahead

FINE GAEL is reshuffling its communications team in an apparent attempt to appease Enda Kenny’s critics and boost his struggling leadership of the party.

Long-serving communications director Ciaran Conlon is moving to a planning and strategic role ahead of the next general election, party sources said.

His deputy, former Army commandant Feargal Purcell, will take over the day-to-day running of the press office.

Mr Conlon is regarded as one of Mr Kenny’s key lieutenants and, together with Carlow-Kilkenny TD Phil Hogan, was instrumental in helping Mr Kenny defeat the heave against his leadership over the summer.

However, that saw Mr Conlon create further enemies within the party on top of those who were already blaming his communications strategy for Fine Gael’s slide in the polls.

Mr Kenny has embarked on a series of changes in a bid to restore impetus to the party and shore up his leadership.

The party’s political director, Michael McLoughlin, departed in recent weeks after just two years in the role. At the time of his appointment, Mr McLoughlin would have been expected to serve through a general election, but both supporters and opponents of Mr Kenny felt a change was needed.

Fine Gael has hired communications consultant and former party councillor Mark Mortell as a senior advisor to Mr Kenny, effectively to replace Mr McLoughlin.

Mr Mortell has launched a “review of party structures” with a view to getting Fine Gael in better shape for the general election, which many around Leinster House believe is just months away.

The changes to the communications team are understood to be part of this review, although Mr Conlon’s move is being characterised in different ways.

Those with knowledge of the move say Mr Conlon will now work even more closely with both Mr Kenny and Mr Hogan in preparing strategy for the election.

They say Mr Conlon had been approached in the spring about such a switch to free him from the distractions of the 24-7 media cycle in order to focus on the election, only for the failed summer heave to delay it.

However, critics of the leadership say the switch is being made in a clear attempt to improve communications strategy and argue such a development is overdue.

Mr Conlon has been communications director with Fine Gael since 2003, a period in which it has enjoyed numerous electoral successes and overtaken Fianna Fáil as the largest party at local election level. But despite Fine Gael winning 20 extra seats in the 2007 general election, it was not enough to placate internal critics of either Mr Kenny or Mr Conlon.

Mr Purcell, who is assuming responsibility for day-to-day running of the party’s media operations, moved to Fine Gael in 2008 after 18 years in the Defence Forces, the last two and half of which he spent in the press office.