MEETING: THE FOUR candidates for the leadership of Fianna Fáil focused on broadly similar themes of reorganising and re-energising the party, as well as a return to core values, when addressing their parliamentary colleagues last night.
Yesterday’s parliamentary party meeting was confined to a “hustings” involving the four candidates: Mary Hanafin, Brian Lenihan, Micheál Martin and Éamon Ó Cuív.
Party chairman John Browne opened the meeting and made a brief speech praising Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who stepped down as party leader on Saturday. Mr Cowen was in attendance at the Fianna Fáil party rooms on the fifth floor of Leinster House, but sat among colleagues and not in his customary position at the top table.
The candidates spoke in alphabetical order, with each speaking for between 15 and 20 minutes. TDs and Senators who attended said all spoke well, but most identified the speeches of the two TDs identified as front-runners – Mr Martin and Mr Lenihan – as the strongest. Mr Martin referred to a script during a “presentation-style” speech, while Mr Lenihan spoke without notes.
“He is a great speaker and he was very natural. He had a good flow and was very solid,” said one TD.
There was strong consensus among TDs who spoke to The Irish Times that it was a useful exercise. “It was great. We were going back into the soul of Fianna Fáil. It’s going to be painful and take a long time to revive the party. But it gave us a lift and we really needed one,” said another member who attended.
Ms Hanafin also said afterwards there was a great atmosphere, with four candidates each presenting a vision to the party.
“I said that we did not desert our values but we did not speak about them enough. We just did not let people know the work we did was based on those values,” she said.
Another strong theme for her was that the party needed to look at things differently, to re-evaluate. “This country is not an economy. It’s a society and a community and a family,” she said.
Mr Lenihan dwelled on the huge challenge facing the party in Dublin in the general election and argued he would be best placed to ensure the party was not wiped out in the capital.
He placed huge emphasis on his skill as a communicator and the skills he would bring to the TV debates during the election campaign, with his “clinical analysis” of the shortcomings of other candidates, particularly on the economy.
Some colleagues believed Mr Lenihan would present himself as a short-term leader to lead the party into the election and to step down in favour of a younger leader in the medium term. But he made no reference to that in his speech, saying he was prepared to travel around the country to reorganise and reinvigorate the party.
In his speech, Mr Martin also referred to his skills as an organiser and as a communicator. He devoted a good portion of his speech to values, including the personal experiences of his family.
He told the meeting that Fianna Fáil had long been identified as the party representing the hopes, values and aspirations of ordinary people. He said it was Fianna Fáil that ensured that he and his siblings were the first in their family to progress to second-level and third-level education.
He also outlined what he said was the mammoth task ahead of restructuring and reorganising the party, saying he had the energy and commitment to see through a long-term project.
For his part, Mr Ó Cuív said he did not focus so much on values but on the “job spec” that would be involved for the leader. Colleagues said his speech was very typical of Mr Ó Cuív, very much appealing to the grassroots of the party, from which he draws a lot of support.
“The question that I asked was will people ask themselves two or three years after the election, did we choose the right leader? That is an important question for the party.”
He also said that beyond the immediate challenge of the election, the real challenge was the longer-term one of building up the party.
“I am happy to go from hall to hall and meet people, organise people and deal with administration. That is what the leader will be doing. It will not be a glory trip. There is hard work to do, night and day."