He offered rigorous, indomitable analysis

ON March 9 last, Garret FitzGerald returned to the Dáil to witness Enda Kenny being elected Taoiseach.

He sat in a chair overlooking the Dáil benches and took evident delight in seeing Mr Kenny follow in his footsteps and lead Fine Gael back into government.

But relations with Mr Kenny and Fine Gael had not always been as good in the previous couple of years.

FitzGerald, in his role as a newspaper columnist and commentator on public affairs, regarded himself as an independent figure, believing he had a duty to call things as he saw them rather than play blind allegiance to the party he had once led.

So, for example, prior to the European elections in June 2009, FitzGerald urged Fine Gael voters in Dublin to give their second preferences to pro-Lisbon candidates such as Fianna Fáil’s Eoin Ryan rather than Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald.

Fine Gael headquarters was distinctly unimpressed, because Kenny and Co wanted to see the back of Mr Ryan. “The intervention of Garret on behalf of Eoin Ryan was unhelpful,” one party strategist said at the time. In the end, neither Ryan nor McDonald retained their seats.

FitzGerald found himself at odds with the party again in the autumn of 2009, when he expressed the view that it was the wrong time for the Fianna Fáil-led government to fall.

Although critical of the government for the role it played in the economic crash, FitzGerald said the fiscal and banking crises had to be tackled and it was better for the administration to survive until at least the end of that year in order to implement their proposals and restore some semblance of stability.

“The opposition parties should be the first to recognise this,” he wrote. “No worse fate could befall an opposition than to precipitate themselves into government by defeating measures, the rejection of which could throw our state into the hands of the IMF.”

Fine Gael headquarters, again, quickly made clear that it disagreed with FitzGerald’s views, saying he had been commenting in an “independent” capacity.

In late 2009, anonymous Fine Gael strategists were quoted in a book by academic and former political correspondent Kevin Rafter expressing their annoyance with FitzGerald.

FitzGerald, they said, clearly held Enda Kenny in low regard.

“He doesn’t rate Enda,” one said. “There has hardly been a mention of Enda Kenny or his achievements as party leader in Garret’s newspaper columns.”

The same strategists spoke of a “south Dublin snobbery” within certain sections of Fine Gael that led to disdainful views of Kenny.

It wasn’t just anonymous attacks, however. FitzGerald was also on the receiving end when Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar stood up to criticise the economic record of the then-taoiseach, Brian Cowen, in March last year.

“The Taoiseach is no Seán Lemass, Jack Lynch or John Bruton,” Varadkar said. “He is a Garret FitzGerald. He has trebled the national debt and effectively destroyed the country.”

Varadkar later apologised.

None of it appeared to bother FitzGerald, however. He simply continued to offer rigorous analysis in his own indomitable style, whether his observations pleased Fine Gael or not.

But he himself was undoubtedly pleased watching Kenny becoming Taoiseach on March 9 — and was similarly pleased to see the impressive Varadkar in the Cabinet.

He wrote of the eventful day in his column, stating: “I thought Enda Kenny was most impressive — both in the warmth and genuine feeling he conveyed in his two speeches, and also in his brisk handling of his exchanges with Micheál Martin.

“While everyone will have his or her own view on the portfolio allocation, in conjunction with Eamon Gilmore he has put together an impressive Cabinet, blending experience with youth, in the form of Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar.”