TDs speak on Kenny nomination

The process of nominating Enda Kenny as the country's 12th Taoiseach was underway this lunchtime with the Fine Gael leader receiving some unexpected backing, and some predicted opposition.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said that his party would not oppose Kenny's nomination, breaking the tradition of the opposition backing their own candidate.

Deputy Martin said it was clear that Fine Gael and Labour had received a mandate from the people, and his party would not support any other candidate.

"‘We will not follow the example, set in recent years, of manoeuvring to oppose everything for the sake of popularity," the Fianna Fáil leader said.

Mr Martin said Fianna Fáil would provide "constructive opposition" in the Dail.

He pledged not to oppose everything for the sake of popularity.

“It is my intention that Fianna Fail will provide an opposition that is both assertive and constructive,” he said.

Mr Kenny was nominated by Fine Gael's Simon Harris, youngest of 166 TDs at 24, who said "the period of mourning was over" for Ireland.

The nomination was seconded by Labour's Ciara Conway.

However the nomination of Kenny was opposed by Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, one of the nominated speakers of the 16-member technical group of Independents.

Flanked by independents and left-leaning TDs, he claimed the Fine Gael/Labour coalition’s programme for government was a “grotesque betrayal” of the democratic revolution of the people.

“A vote for Deputy Kenny as Taoiseach is a vote not for revolution, not for change, but for counter-revolution and more of the same,” he said in an impassioned address.

He warned the programme of “savage austerity” would not go unchallenged.

Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams also said his party did not support the nomination of Mr Kenny.

Nonetheless, the new deputy for Louth said he respected the mandate that Fine Gael and Labour had been given, and he wished the incoming Taoiseach and government well.

He said Sinn Fein would provide a “robust” opposition in the Dáil.

Newly elected Independent Shane Ross, a member of a technical group along with Deputy Higgins giving enhanced speaking rights, said he was deeply discouraged when he read the programme for government.

He said there was no vision in it.

“There were so many reviews, there were so many fudges, that we do not exactly know what they’re promising at all,” he said.

“Except that they will be the government in the next few years and they will stick together come hell or high water.”

Deputy Ross said he feared the promises of change would be empty and were already disappearing

Richard Boyd Barrett, of People Before Profit and the United Left Alliance, said they would not be voting for Mr Kenny.

He hit out at Labour for signing up to a coalition that will axe 25,000 public sector jobs and introduce water charges.

He claimed the programme for government would “cripple” the economy for years to come and he pledged to support public protests over it.

“The pledge of the United Left Alliance is to support those groups in society who through no fault of their own are now being targeted with job losses, and now being targeted with brutal cuts that will put familes under,” he said.

Fine Gael's Seán Barrett was earlier elected unopposed as Ceann Comhairle.

Following the speeches TDs began the process of voting on Kenny's nomination.