Hayes has not decided on MEP attempt

Junior finance minister Brian Hayes has insisted he will not be bounced into standing for Fine Gael in the European elections.

He insists that he has not finally made up his mind about whether to fight the Dublin constituency in the June poll which is expected to see heavy Coalition losses.

Speculation over the intentions of Mr Hayes have sparked intense manoeuvring within Fine Gael with claims the leadership have tried to “smoke out” his candidacy with a whispering campaign that chief whip Paul Kehoe may contest the seat.

A prominent source within the party said Mr Hayes was attracted by the idea of running for the MEP slot because he did not expect to be elevated to full cabinet rank by Enda Kenny in next year’s reshuffle.

Mr Hayes was a key figure in the heave of 2010 which nearly ousted Mr Kenny from the party leadership.

Sources close to Mr Hayes insisted he had still to weigh up whether to leave the Government for Brussels.

“He will not be bounced into this and the attempts by the leadership to smoke him out are not going to work,” said the source.

Mr Hayes insisted Fine Gael had a collective responsibility to hold its European seats in the face of boundary changes which have shrunk the number of Irish MEPs from 12 to 11 as the Government faces dissatisfaction levels of 70%

Mr Hayes, often spoken off in party ranks as a possible future leader of Fine Gael if he remained in the Dáil, was careful to keep his options open.

“I am not ruling anything out, but I have not decided one way or another,” said the minister, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works. “We all have a collective responsibility in Fine Gael to do well in Dublin at the elections.”

The standing down of presidential loser candidate Gay Mitchell at the Euro elections leaves the contest for Fine Gael wide open.

The party is keen for a high profile candidate to contest the seat and Senator Eamon Coghlan, a former World 5,000 metres champion, has also been linked to an MEP bid in the capital.

Mr Mitchell’s decision not to run makes Dublin the most unpredictable of the three constituencies as contesting and the other two MEPs, Labour’s Emer Costello and the Socialist Party’s Paul Murphy, did not fight the seat last time out but inherited it when colleagues, Proinsias De Rossa and Joe Higgins, resigned.