No cheesy picture as Enda’s crisp speech welcomes 70 jobs

It should have been the day Mr Tayto met Mr Taoiseach but, strangely, the big yellow fellow was nowhere to be seen as Enda Kenny arrived to marvel at the adventure park built to honour the crisp icon.

“Mr Tayto’s busy, so he is,” an insider revealed on the promise of anonymity, before adding, mysteriously: “He’s been busy since that incident with Brian Cowen. Mr Tayto doesn’t meet politicians anymore.”

Though not recounted in his best selling autobiography, it seems that “incident” was not really Mr Tayto’s fault at all, but rather unscrupulous media outfits had printed pictures of him meeting the then Taoiseach and made unkind comparisons about how much the pair resembled each other.

Since then Mr Tayto has politely, but firmly, shunned world leaders which will no doubt come as a blow to the likes of Nelson Mandela or Ban Ki-Moon should they ever find themselves in this part of deepest Meath.

But if Mr Kenny was upset at missing his chance to have his picture taken with the larger-than-life character who strolls around Tayto Park on all other days, he did not show it.

“I’m a cheese and onion man,” the Taoiseach exclaimed at one point, before he started chatting to turkeys.

No, not the ones around the Cabinet table he was meeting later for their (look busy and pretend we’re doing something about the unemployment crisis) Government Buildings “summit”, but real-life turkeys.

Always the comforter, Mr Kenny turned to the birds in the animal sanctuary and told them: “Christmas is over. It’s OK, you’re safe now.”

The Taoiseach was clearly in reflective mood as he followed this up by musing during his speech welcoming 78 new jobs at the food manufacturer. “The Tayto and the spud is in most Irish people.”

And in a display of his easy charm, Mr Kenny kept the assembled business leaders and local dignitaries waiting while he went to say hello to the women behind the tea counter.

All were suitably delighted with the attention as a result.

Then he bounded over to the production line for a rather dry tour of the crisp manufacturing process. All this could have taken on the feel of a North Korean factory visit by the Dear Leader but such a danger was made impossible by the ubiquitous sound of the annoyingly catchy single “Mr Tayto, Mr Tayto — You’re the leader of the pack” playing continuously in the background.

After all the excitement of seeing the buffalo, big cats, and talking to the turkeys, Mr Kenny was given a goody bag when he left — containing burgers. But any potential PR disaster was averted when we were assured they were 100% bison burgers — and definitely not related to any of the bison roaming the park.

Visiting a food production plant at a time like this could have proved tricky for the Taoiseach but, thankfully, Mr Tayto has no plans to follow his groundbreaking invention of cheese and onion crisps with a horse meat variety.