Coveney defends Taoiseach’s handling of campaign

Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney has defended Taoiseach Enda Kenny over his handling of the Seanad abolition campaign and dismissed any suggestion that the defeat of the referendum will lead to any questioning of Mr Kenny's leadership of Fine Gael.

Speaking in Cork, Mr Coveney said that he knew that Mr Kenny was disappointed at the outcome of the vote as he was himself but he would respect the decision of the people and reflect on it as he continues to lead a reforming government through a programme of change.

Asked if the result cast any doubts over Mr Kenny's leadership of Fine Gael, Mr Coveney was emphatic that Mr Kenny's position both within Fine Gael and as leader of the coalition was secure as he defended Mr Kenny's decision not to engage in a TV debate with Fianna Fail 's Micheal Martin.

“Not at all, no, I mean Enda is an extremely strong leader of Fine Gael as a party, he’s an extremely strong leader in government at the moment .... I think what we’ve seen today is the follow through on a promise he made that many people were sceptical that he would follow through on,” he said.

“But they shouldn’t have been sceptical because they should know him better than that and he will accept this decision and he will move on and try and make that decision work for the country and for the Irish people who have given their determination.”

Cork North Central Fianna Fail TD Billy Kelleher described Mr Kenny as "cowardly" for refusing to debate Seanad abolition on television with Mr Martin. Mr Kelleher said that the entire referendum which was costing the state €14 million to hold was very much Mr Kenny's project and he should have come out to defend it.

“Enda Kenny failed singularly to engage with the public in any meaningful way in trying to put forward any coherent cohesive argument as to why the Seanad should be abolished - if you have a commitment to put forward a proposal , surely you should be willing to engage in debate,” he said.

“I think he was cowardly in the extreme in not engaging debate. Iit wasn’t about engaging with Micheal Martin, it was about engaging with the broader public and he never got involved - he never went to the studios or into the public domain to carry the debate to the people.”

Mr Coveney dismissed the comments, saying Mr Kenny had made the right decision.

“Fianna Fail are trying to turn this into a win for the Fianna Fail here by trying to land cheap punches on the Taoiseach. I think that’s nonsense - what’s happened here is beyond party politics,” he said.

“The Taoiseach had good reasons for not facilitating a profile building head to head debate with a leader of Fianna Fail who is trying to build his profile at the moment. What he didn’t want was a distraction from the issue that the public had to decide on and I thought that was the right call.

“This shows the Taoiseach as somebody who does what he says he intends to do - three years ago, he said if he became Taoiseach, he would put this to the people and that’s exactly what he did ... he’s a straightshooter and I think people respect him for that.”

Although the Government had stressed during the campaign that the options facing the people were either abolition or retention and reform was not on the agenda, Mr Coveney appeared to suggest that the government would now have to look at reforming the Seanad.

“The Government has to listen to what the people have to say, this was a low turnout but it was still a referendum and you can’t ignore a majority decision of those who chose to vote - I suspect the Taoiseach and the government will now reflect on this.

"This is a reforming government, we are trying to build a better governance model in Ireland and we will continue to do that but we will of course respect the decision of the people in this referendum so I think there's some thought and discussion needed in government following this result.

“But I can assure you of one thing, this result will be not ignored and the reforming nature of this government will continue and we will try and balance the two of those obligations and respond appropriately to the decision of the people.”

Mr Coveney, who saw his Cork South Central constituency narrowly reject the government proposal to abolish the Seanad, also defended the timing of the referendum and said holding it next year along with local and European elections would not have been the right move.

He said Mr Kenny had given a commitment to hold the referendum on the Seanad early in the lifetime of this government and delaying it until next year would have led people to criticise him given that commitment while holding it with local elections would not have been a good idea.

“Our experience is that if you try to run important referendums with other elections, then a lot of other things get in the way and we’ve experienced that with some of the other referendums so no, I think this was important enough for people to consider this on its own, in isolation.”