Enda Kenny underlines his Brexit legacy

Enda Kenny has maintained a strict silence since stepping down as Taoiseach exactly a year ago this week, but yesterday saw his first major intervention into public debate as an elder statesman.

Speaking at a lunch in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, Kenny said he is "appalled" by the current state of British politics. The Mayo TD was addressing a gathering of the European Movement Ireland, which named him European of the Year. The award was presented to Kenny by his successor, Leo Varadkar.

As Anglo-Irish relations worsened in the past year, a lament for Kenny and Charlie Flanagan, his minister for foreign affairs, could often be heard from the ranks of hardline Brexiteers and the DUP.

Kenny, it was claimed, was easier to deal with than the bolshier upstarts Varadkar and Coveney.

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His comments yesterday indicate that Kenny would have taken as hard a line as Varadkar, even if he may have taken a softer line in public. He also suggested that Donald Tusk, the European Council president, should convene a special summit later this year to deal exclusively with the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement due to be finalised by October.

The normal October summit, Kenny argued, will not be adequate because it is not a “negotiating summit”.

Elsewhere, the Taoiseach and Simon Coveney have denied the Irish Government is allowing a deal on the "backstop" - the arrangement to avoid for a hard border even in a no-deal "Brexit scenario" - slide until October, as Simon Carswell reports here.

At the Shelbourne yesterday, Varadkar suggested a deal could be reached by November, pushing the timeframe out even further.

Coveney is expected to brief the Cabinet on Tuesday on the Government’s reaction to the UK’s alternative backstop, which was published last week.

In his speech, Kenny also reflected on the declaration he secured in his final weeks as Taoiseach last year: the EU commitment that Northern Ireland will be automatically readmitted to the union in the event of Irish unity.

“That opportunity, while it is not for now, is there for all to judge at some future time,” he said. “It puts paid, for once and for all, to the warped mentality held by the Provisional IRA that it was possible to bomb the six counties into a united Ireland. The ballot overrules the bullet here.”

The former Taoiseach clearly sees this - dubbed the “Kenny text” - as his lasting Brexit legacy. Varadkar has until October to shape a large portion of his.