Kenny silent on claims that he misled Dáil

Enda Kenny has refused to comment on allegations by a minister that the Taoiseach effectively misled the Dáil.

During a trip to the Irish peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, Mr Kenny attempted to dismiss the remarks by Alex White, the junior health minister and a contender for the Labour leadership.

Despite Mr Kenny’s repeated denials to the Dáil that he fired Garda commissioner Martin Callinan, Mr White wrote to Labour Party members saying he would not stand over a situation where the Taoiseach “looks to fire the Garda commissioner” without talking to the Tánaiste.

“I’m not going to comment on comments which are attributed to either Minister White, or a spokesman for Minister White. Clearly the Labour Party are fully entitled to do their leadership in the way that they have set out and their conditions and their rules and they should be entitled to do that without interference from me,” Mr Kenny said.

The focal point of Mr Kenny’s four-hour visit to the centre of the Irish operation near the Israeli border was laying a wreath at the memorial to the 47 soldiers from Ireland who have died during the UN peacekeeping mission.

A poignant ceremony saw the 47 names read out before a lone piper played a lament at the memorial in the foothills close to the previous Irish mission base near Tibnin.

Mr Kenny said: “We are very proud of the professionalism, the competence, and the experience they have leant to this part of a troubled world.

“When the minute’s silence is called for and the people stand with heads bowed, you can actually hear the silence in the cypress trees. It is an evocative moment in many ways. You hear the roll call of names and the years in which they lost their lives.”

Mr Kenny also held talks with Lebanese prime minister Tammam Salam in Beirut, where they discussed the Isis sweep through northern Iraq and refugee problems caused by the civil war in Syria.

The case of Kevin Joyce, a soldier believed killed in Lebanon in 1981 but whose body has never been recovered, was also remembered by the Taoiseach.

He also raised the cases of Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett, murdered by an Israeli-backed militia in 1980, with Lebanese authorities. The suspect, Mahmoud Bazzi, is living in the US.

“There are legal matters that have to be dealt with by the United States. You would like to think these things could have a closure brought to them. This is an unsolved murder and clearly there is a need for justice to be done and to be seen to be done,” Mr Kenny said.