Changing leaders - Taoiseach’s leadership in question too

If you accept the rationale behind Eamon Gilmore’s honourable resignation then it is irrational and blindly partisan to suggest that Taoiseach Enda Kenny should not face a robust review of his leadership of the Government and of Fine Gael.

To argue that Mr Kenny should not face a demanding reappraisal reeks of the presumption, the barely concealed sense of entitlement and hubris apparent in some quarters of Fine Gael — at least before the weekend’s humiliation. These unattractive, anti-democratic traits contributed significantly to the near evisceration of the government parties and, on a wider front, the political establishment at local, national, and European levels.

That nothing-to-see-here argument ignores the fact that Mr Kenny’s Government, with considerable help from their predecessors, have brought the country to the point where our political establishment and its prescriptions have been roundly rejected by a seething electorate and ignored by an unacceptably high number of people — one in two of the electorate — who choose not to vote. Even more still spoil their ballot papers in a mute, pointless protest. This does not represent any kind of success or celebration of democracy and is a very real threat to recovery and stability.