Simon Coveney stands over his coalition remarks
One of his own Fine Gael party TDs even went as far as to suggest anybody supporting the idea of forming a government with Fianna Fáil after the next general election “would want their head examined”.
The backlash for Mr Coveney, tipped as a possible future leader of Fine Gael, came after his interview with the Irish Examiner this week in which he said he could work with Fianna Fáil in power.
The Cork South Central TD stood over his comments yesterday, saying he did not have any “Civil War baggage”.
“It was nothing new and lots of other people have said things similar,” he said.
Mr Coveney reiterated his preference for a Fine Gael-Labour government to be returned after the next general election. He said he was not happy that his remarks had been interpreted as “disloyalty” by Labour’s Kathleen Lynch, the junior health minister, and that this was a “shame”.
But other Labour figures, as well as Fine Gael TDs, rounded on his comments.
Deputy Labour leader Alan Kelly, also the environment minister, agreed the remarks were disloyal, and “strange” and that his Cabinet colleague needed to reflect on his comments .
Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan said the comments had been “inappropriate”, but said her party, Labour, and Fine Gael worked well together.
One Labour minister, privately, said Mr Coveney had been told his comments had been “ill judged”, but that the backlash may have been more from his own party colleagues.
“Simon dirtied his bib internally,” quipped the minister.
Limerick TD Patrick O’Donovan disagreed with the idea of his party, Fine Gael, entering into coalition with Fianna Fáil.
“The same characters who led us into the abyss in 2011 are still knocking around and for that reason and that reason alone, I think anybody who would be countenancing anything to do with them would want their head examined.”
Meath East TD Regina Doherty said Mr Coveney had been “pragmatic”, but she was also opposed to a deal with Fianna Fáil.
“I genuinely couldn’t see how they [voters] would condone, after only four years, of supporting Fianna Fáil to put them back into the seats of power.”
It is understood officials in the Taoiseach’s office have also spoken to Mr Coveney about his remarks.
Asked about his party colleague’s comments, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said the Coalition needed to stay focused on providing good government with the election over a year away.
He added: “I think that’s the best we can do rather than speculating about future coalitions.”
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald told the Fine Gael parliamentary meeting last night the re-election of Fine Gael and Labour was the focus of the party, and this should be the view expressed in public.
Mr Coveney spoke at the gathering. He did not apologise, but claimed his remarks had been taken out of context.
At Labour’s parliamentary meeting, TDs expressed frustration at the turn of events with Fine Gael.
‘No ideological problem’ with FF
This is a transcript of the complete section of an interview, word for word, pertaining to the next general election which was conducted with Simon Coveney, the agriculture minister, by our political reporter Juno McEnroe. The interview was conducted before Christmas and the story pertaining to Mr Coveney’s comments about the next election was printed in Tuesday’s Irish Examiner:
A: My preference is for the current government to be re-elected.
A: If you asked me that question 12 months ago, we would have comfortably had the numbers. So at the moment we don’t have the numbers, absolutely. We’ve had a terrible year, politically.
A: If we don’t make it up with Labour alone, then we have to look at options.
A: I’ve said that I just don’t see a Fine Gael, Sinn Féin government. I just don’t see that happening. But I have an open mind in terms of all other possibilities because that’s democracy.
A: Micheál Martin could be in any position, who knows.
A: I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to tell you as to what the next government might look like.
A: They will, they will. I’ve said before. I don’t have any ideological problem with forming a coalition with Fianna Fáil as long as we can hammer out a Programme for Government, that is something that Fine Gael can support.
I’ve said that before. I think there’s a lot of good people in Fianna Fáil. I think I could work with them. And people who support Fianna Fáil, in some ways, probably have a lot in common with people who support Fine Gael. This isn’t an ideological problem for me. It’ll be a practical challenge though to put together a programme for government that we could sign up to and that Fianna Fáil can sign up to. That is something that we’ll have to look at. But my preference is to form a Fine Gael and Labour government and, you know, future coalitions with Sinn Féin, I mean if you’re asking me the honest question, I just don’t see it happening because I just don’t see the parties as compatible.
But, you know, we’ll see what the future holds. But I don’t think that’s a likely scenario in any circumstances really.
But I think anything else, you know I’ve listened to Micheál Martin ruling out government I think with everybody at this stage. There’s no way they’re going to go into government with Sinn Féin, there’s no way they’re going to go into government with Fine Gael.
A: I don’t know what his plan after the next general election is.
A: We as politicians [interupted].
A: I know Micheál a long time. I don’t have any problem with him, I think he’s very competent.
A: I’m not going to start suggesting that he’d be a good Tánaiste, because I don’t know. We’ll have to sit down after the next general election. The way democracy works in every country is never convenient for politicians or simple.
Whatever people decide. A decision they make in the next general election. It will be up to the politicians that are lucky enough to be elected to put a stable government together that can take Ireland forward.
I don’t think we can do that with Sinn Féin but I think there are lots of other options that could be possible.
My role in that, as the person who has been asked to put the policy together for Fine Gael between now and the general election by the Taoiseach. Obviously I’ll have a role to play in putting a programme for government together from a policy point of view and, you know, if I’m sitting down with Micheál Martin or Michael McGrath or, you know, whoever else is there, well so be it. But you know in the meantime, my strong, all of my efforts will be [interupted]
A: In convincing people the year that has just passed is something that we have learnt from and we’ll move on from. And I think that if Fine Gael and Labour are given another term in government they can bring some, you know, a very positive new vision for where we want to take the country.
