The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, yesterday threw his weight behind the by-election candidacy of Mr Simon Coveney, the second-eldest son of the late Mr Hugh Coveney, who died in a walking accident on the cliffs above Cork Harbour last March.
The signs were that none of the seven Coveney children would enter politics in their father's footsteps, but the party brought immense pressure to bear for one of them to stand in the constituency, where a Fine Gael seat had been left vacant by their father's death.
At a news conference in Cork yesterday Mr Bruton made it plain that as far as he was concerned the best candidate in the field was Mr Simon Coveney. He endorsed his candidacy and indicated he would not be endorsing any other Fine Gael candidate.
The prospective TD was told he was the chosen one and that the party - while it welcomed the democratic process and that other candidates might oppose him at the convention in two weeks' time - would be backing him with all its might.
However last night, Mr Sylvester Cotter, a Cork city councillor for the past eight years and a member of the Fine Gael party for two decades, said he regarded Mr Bruton's support for the candidacy of a member of the Coveney family as `smacking of fascism".
Prior to the last general election, Mr Cotter outwitted Mr Coveney at the party's selection convention in Cork South Central, and forced the former cabinet member and subsequently , a junior minister, to review his career in politics , having been defeated at a convention which he was widely expected to win with little difficulty. Mr Cotter said last night he was very angry about Mr Bruton's remarks at yesterday's news conference in Cork and added that he would have to make a decision concerning his future.
Mr Bruton told said that in a democracy anyone who wished to go forward should go forward and this was the Fine Gael ethos. Would he, if asked, sit beside another candidate? "No, I will not," he replied. There seems little point, therefore, in other candidates attempting to seek the nomination. That might have repercussions locally, but Mr Bruton was unfazed. The best candidate was being put forward and the party was giving him its full support. It might be foolhardy, therefore, for other candidates to oppose Mr Coveney - as young as he is - at the convention.
Mr Bruton said Mr Coveney, despite being only 26, had already shown positive signs of leadership. He was the one who skippered the family yacht, Golden Apple, when it set off on a round-the-world trip last year in aid of the Chernobyl Children's Project in Cork.
Mr Coveney junior said that while he recognised his father's strictures about entering public life, he also knew that a huge political vacuum had to be filled and that someone had to do it. But he had discussed over the years with his father his desire to become involved in politics and his father had been encouraged by his enthusiasm. In the era of the Celtic Tiger, there was a great need for young people to be involved in politics and it was a role he expected to play. The timing of his arrival in the public arena was not of his own choosing, but it was an opportunity he had to take. One of the sadnesses involved in his decision to run for public life was the fact that other members of the family who are completing the round-the-world trip would not be present in the event of his election to the Dail.
Mr Bruton said he expected the writ for the by-election would be moved early in the next session of the Dail, and that Mr Simon Coveney would win the seat.