Enda Kenny needs 'space' to negotiate best Brexit deal for Ireland says Fine Gael MEP

The Taoiseach must be given “space” to negotiate the best deal for Ireland in relation to Brexit, a Fine Gael MEP has claimed.

Mairead McGuinness has stood by her party leader, Enda Kenny in an apparent move to silence recent calls on him to make public his plans for stepping down.

Speaking at the MacGill Summer School yesterday Ms McGuinness said: “Now is the time for the Taoiseach to be given the space to deal with this European issue that has all-Ireland implications.”

She added that Mr Kenny previously turned down a position in the EU council and instead opted to help bring Ireland out of recession.

“People will know there was a time when they wanted An Taoiseach to be in the council and do European work. And there was an extraordinary respect at the time when he said ‘No I will stay in Ireland and I will try very hard to fix what is broken and to take up that challenge’,” Ms McGuinness said.

Mairead McGuinness

Separately the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) yesterday claimed the agriculture sector is already playing their part in tackling climate change and the focus must now turn to transport, the construction industry and energy providers.

Also speaking at the summer school in Co Donegal IFA president Joe Healy said that meeting EU targets on greenhouse gases will still pose a significant challenge for the agriculture sector.

He called for “immediate action” from government and to support farmers through what he described as a farm income “crisis”.

Ireland will now have to reduce its emissions by a third by 2030 as part of new targets announced by the European Commission yesterday.

The targets are part of a wider commitment to cut overall emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by the end of the next decade. However, Ireland is already expected not to reach the previous 2020 target to bring down carbon emissions by 20% in comparison to 2005 levels.

Although agriculture is the country’s largest carbon emitter, producing almost half of all emissions, Mr Healy pointed out that there is very little room to reduce emissions from farming and other areas must be focused on.

“The science tells us that Irish agriculture can reduce emissions by no greater than 8%. The greatest and most cost effective opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions come in the built environment, transport and energy sectors,” he said.