Martin targets Kenny in bid to rouse activists

ENDA Kenny was pitched as a man unable to govern the country as Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin sought to rally his party’s famed but jaded canvassing machine.

The Fine Gael leader was directly targeted by Mr Martin, who asked party activists to do everything they could to turn Fianna Fáil’s fortunes around.

He said Mr Kenny’s “mindset isn’t a leadership mindset”.

“The way he is behaving so far is not the behaviour of a future leader of this country,” he said.

Mr Martin said he did not need to be protected at press conferences and took questions on his own, compared with Mr Kenny who, he claimed, needed “three or four handlers”.

He called on his rival to “free himself from his advisors” and asked why the Fine Gael leader had “run out the door” of a press conference on Wednesday when problems with the party’s financial projections were spotted.

Mr Martin’s personalised attacks were repeated across his tour of the north-east as he looked to harvest the mood from recent opinion polls.

These suggested the public felt the former minister would be a better Taoiseach than Enda Kenny, who is the bookies’ favourite to lead the next government.

Mr Martin’s early itinerary has not been geared towards convincing the wider electorate. Instead the events have been designed to re-energise local Fianna Fáil activists who had successfully organised to bring out the vote in previous elections.

His visit to Meath west began in Dunboyne with a townhall-style meeting at the old schoolhouse.

He took questions from an audience arranged through the local FF organisation.

There were 75 people in attendance, 12 appeared under the age of 30, three were secondary school children and nine were journalists.

Three hours later a more vibrant crowd gathered in the Headfort Arms Hotel in Kells. The town has recently been relieved of choking traffic by the new M3 motorway, but the prospect of high voltage electricity lines running over ground towards Northern Ireland has been a persistent concern among voters.

The 400 metre walking tour around the centre of the Kells was done under sweeping winds and driving rain. Just a handful of voters had braved the elements and were there to even realise the party leader had paid a visit.

Mr Martin was brought to two mens clothes shops, a shoe shop and a pub.

James Allen, who owns and runs one of those shops, told Mr Martin that, as a Fianna Fáil supporter, it was more difficult to cast his ballot this time but the country still needed a strong opposition.

The purpose of the visit to Kells was to boost the campaign of outgoing TD Thomas Byrne who later welcomed him to what he described as a “room of canvassers” at the Headfort Arms.

Mr Byrne said Fine Gael and the Labour Party were enjoying strong support but there was a large body of the electorate who could still be swayed.

“You know on the doors… about 25% of people are undecided; that is a huge amount of people you can convince,” he said.

Mr Martin told the same canvassers they needed to coax voters to focus on substance and not on soundbites. He rallied them to press their “neighbours, friends and cousins” to give the party’s policies an airing.

Afterwards Mr Martin’s took his effort to stir life into the Fianna Fáil grassroots northwards to Monaghan for a night time rally for outgoing TD Margaret Conlon.