Taoiseach Kenny - Pledge on honesty is welcome

ACKNOWLEDGING the vote that made him our 13th Taoiseach — only the second from west of the Shannon — just before two o’clock yesterday afternoon Enda Kenny immediately focussed on two qualities that will be essential if we are to rebuild our economy, our politics and our faith in official Ireland.

Mr Kenny began his premiership by pointing to the central role honesty and optimism must play in rebuilding this society and the relationship between government and the governed.

“Our lives and our futures are predicated on one thing — truth. I am entering into a covenant with the Irish people today. Our government will tell the people the truth, no matter how difficult that may be ...”

This kind of commitment to public honesty and hope will require courage, determination and self discipline from every one of the 117 deputies who voted to make Mr Kenny Taoiseach.

It will demand too the kind of self-challenging honesty from all of society that has not always been robust enough. Self-interest will have to be tempered by a commitment to a rejuvenated Ireland.

The IMF/ECB will determine most of our very limited economic options and there are truly frightening cash flow issues but the reform agenda is completely under the control of this Government. If there is not considerable and more or less immediate progress in this area Mr Kenny and his Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore will soon realise that they have painted themselves into a terribly dark corner.

There has never been a better or more pressing opportunity to re-imagine this republic. It is hard to imagine when there will be another like it.

The composition of the cabinet is along predicted lines even if some portfolios were reshaped. Neither does there seem to be the makings of a cabal of the disaffected left to fester on Government back benches. None of the very senior names were overlooked even if some, especially Joan Bruton, did not get the briefs they might have hoped for. Suggestions that the cabinet might be Dublin-centric have been largely dispelled.

On a day so shaped by etiquette and a degree of celebration one line did stand out. Eamon Gilmore’s pledge to make literacy a national cause is very welcome and overdue. It essential to our future and stability that the decline in literacy in this country be reversed.

Mr Kenny became Taoiseach after 35 years in the Dáil, Alan Shatter became a minster for the first time after 30 years in the House and Michael Noonan made the kind of comeback usually the stuff of Hollywood.

These considerable achievements are examples of the grit and patience we’ll all need in the next while. Let us wish this new Government the very best of luck because they — and all of us — will certainly need it.