Mantra-like, Kenny drove home the message – exports are up; spending is down; growth is back, writes MARK HENNESSY,London Editor
TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny took a leaf from Bing Crosby’s songbook yesterday, seeking to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative about Ireland in the eyes of international investors.
The early-morning journey to Reuters HQ deep in the heart of Canary Wharf has become a pilgrimage route for Irish politicians since Ireland accepted rescue at the hands of the EU and the IMF in late 2010.
Such events are closely watched by international investors, who will have to be convinced that they will not get stung if they buy Irish debt in the days after Ireland emerges once more clean, shiny and new from the hands of the troika.
Every seat was taken, and many had been turned away as Reuters TV anchor Alex Threlfall detailed the challenges facing Mr Kenny ranging from the euro zone crisis, falling growth, to Ireland’s multibillion-euro banking debt.
“It is just as well that Enda Kenny is an optimist. In the words of his wife he doesn’t do stress, he doesn’t do worry. He has a very sunny disposition. He is never contrary and he takes that completely for granted. Problems for him are there to be got over,” said Threlfall.
The audience was receptive. Unlike Greece, Ireland has restored some of its street-cred with the markets for introducing “painful cutbacks and tax increases without the social unrest that has gripped Greece”, as Threlfall put it.
Saying that he had last been in London last April just five weeks after he took up office, Mr Kenny said he had met on that occasion prime minister David Cameron, Irish business leaders in London and the Irish community.
Yesterday, the diary was the same: “So, perhaps, you might say that little has changed in the past nine months. Well, in some respects, that may be true.
“The euro zone crisis lumbers on. The economic situation remains very challenging, both here and at home in Ireland.”
Queen Elizabeth’s visit last May, which he said had boosted British tourist numbers, still brings a glow: “For all the anticipation, and indeed a little anxiety, the visit was perhaps most remarkable precisely because, in the end, it felt so normal.”
On occasions, it felt as if Mr Kenny had adopted the role of a gym instructor delivering a mid-January pep talk to a class already rueing fervently made new year resolutions, urging them to stay the course and reach the Promised Land.
“We believe that we will get through this challenging time. To those who despair about politics and say, you know, it has all gone wrong, this is the time to be in politics, this is the time for leadership, this is the time to convince others that the EU is a very special process.”
Mantra-like, he drove home the message: exports are up, spending is down, growth is back, wages are more competitive, Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate is safe from the ravages of France and will remain so.
However, Mr Kenny, a politician, not a bond-trader, is conscious that the message cannot all be about “the markets”, even if the Irish are a pragmatic people who “understand that the deficit is not going to go away on its own”.
“My involvement in politics comes from a deep understanding no matter what level it is at, it is always about people, families, their career opportunities, their lives. I never lose sight of that in my political career,” he said.