Kenny left reeling as photo op scrapped after backlash

Enda Kenny was forced to cancel a “triumphalist” PR stunt after Fine Gael was left reeling by accusations of staging an arrogant celebration of austerity.

Amid farcical scenes, the Taoiseach ordered the shutdown of a photo op at which TDs and senators were to parade with star-shaped placards marking Fine Gael’s “first year of achievement” after it provoked anger from Labour and a bitter backlash from the public.

Mr Kenny insisted he did not know about the photo op until yesterday morning. Fine Gael’s head of publicity Tom Fabozzi added that it had come up at the end of the parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday night: “I think a lot of people had probably tuned out at that stage.”

Pressed on whether the Taoiseach had urged Fine Gaelers to attend, Mr Fabozzi said: “He may have thought they were referring to the International Women’s Day photocall.”

However, a source at the meeting insists they heard TD John Deasy raise the matter while the Taoiseach was 10ft away. Mr Deasy reportedly urged the party to abandon the stunt as it was “madness” given the economic pain in the country.

One senior Government source told the Irish Examiner: “We couldn’t have pictures of a guy at AIB crying because he’d lost his job next to some gobshite TD from down the country waving a little Fine Gael star.”

Fine Gael scrambled to abandon the PR disaster after Labour’s Pat Rabbitte dismissed it as “silly and inappropriate” given the scale of the economic and social problems.

A noticeably tetchy Taoiseach then confirmed the event had been blocked as it was not in keeping with the image the Government wanted to project.

Though publicly appalled at the Fine Gael plans, some Labour TDs privately revelled in the embarrassment of their Coalition partners, with one TD stating: “Red faces on the Blueshirts will help put them back in their place.”

Both parties denied the breakdown in communications signalled a wider rift.

Opposition figures seized on the shambles in Fine Gael, with leading independent TD Finian McGrath saying: “This is just another example of a government that is becoming more and more out of touch with the lives of ordinary people.”

He accused the Government of behaving with arrogance as the country suffered under their policies of austerity.

The PR fiasco came after the Government was accused of going back on its pledge to bring transparency into public life after Mr Kenny failed to deliver the “score cards” on ministers he had promised. Instead the Government produced a 44-page document listing the policy successes and failures of its first year — 43 pages were devoted to successes, while one page listed “commitments under review”.

Fine Gael insisted it had not meant to show-up its Coalition partner with the event, but had “assumed” Labour would be doing a similar thing and so cancelled the photo op because it did not want to look like “one hand clapping”.