‘Mayo won’t be forgotten’ says Varadkar

LEADER IN WAITING? Leo Varadkar, Fine Gael leadership contender and potentially the next Taoiseach of Ireland, speaks to Neill O’Neill yesterday, after The Mayo News gatecrashed a private gathering at Minister of State Michael Ring’s office in Westport. Pic: Conor McKeown

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Neill O'Neill

WITH voting underway to decide who will replace Mayo Taoiseach Enda Kenny as leader of Fine Gael and head of the government, the present favourite to succeed him, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, has told The Mayo News that if he becomes Taoiseach, nobody in Mayo should fear being forgotten.
With voting in Mayo on the Fine Gael leadership contest taking place today, Deputy Varadkar was in Westport yesterday to attend the funeral of Patsy Gill [mother-in-law of former Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach John Bruton]. He also revealed that he is ‘immensely committed’ to the N5 road project and hopes that Enda Kenny still has a role to play in politics.
When questioned by The Mayo News on whether his friend and party colleague Michael Ring might find himself elevated to become a full member of cabinet under his leadership, Mr Varadkar refused to answer directly, but said that he doesn’t ‘underestimate what he [Ring] could bring to the table’.

Mayo support
While Senator John O’Mahony has opted to vote for the party’s other leadership contender Simon Coveney, and the Taoiseach refuses to reveal his choice, Leo Varadkar is enjoying a high level of support among his parliamentary party colleagues in Mayo. Almost 21,000 Fine Gael members nationally are eligible to vote in the election, and the party’s TDs [50], senators [19] and MEPs [4] have the biggest say, with their votes amounting to 65 percent of the total. Local representatives [mainly councillors, there are ten in Mayo and 235 nationally] equate to ten percent of the national vote and the remainder - regular party members - get a 25 percent say.
“I’m quietly confident and very grateful for the level of support I have received from my party colleagues,” Minister Varadkar told The Mayo News,  including Michael Ring and Michelle Mulhern and Paddy Burke. The hustings have gone pretty well and I’ve been out among the membership. Mayo votes on Tuesday but hopefully it will go well and we will know on Friday.
“I couldn’t tell you how many visits I’ve made to Mayo down through the years, either just as a punter or a politician, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with my colleagues in Mayo. Minister Ring and I served in the same department together in Transport, Tourism and Sport and worked well together.”

West won’t be forgotten
To those who have a vote in this week’s internal party election, Leo Varadkar has a simple but clear message.
“First of all I’m asking for their support, I believe I am in a position to widen the appeal of Fine Gael and bring in new, younger and non-traditional voters into the party, and I also want to lead what will be a post-recession Ireland. We have struggled through the worst recession in a generation, I believe the future is now looking very bright and one of the things I want to do is make sure that all parts of the country, all communities, share in that new Ireland, that new economic development. Key to that of course is going to be extending infrastructure to this county [Mayo].
“Michael [Ring] often makes the point to me, as do Michelle [Mulhern] and Paddy [Burke] and John [O’Mahony] that the motorway network and the road network for people in Mayo more or less ends in Mullingar. The N5 is a project I am immensely committed to. To anyone who fears that this region will be forgotten about if the Taoiseach is from the east coast, I’ve held three cabinet ministries and in all of them I’ve never been a minister for Dublin or Dublin West. I’ve always been a minister for all of Ireland and just to give you a small example, in the budget that is just gone by we fully reversed the cuts to farm assist for example. We are starting to reverse other cuts but the one we reversed fully and completely was farm assist.
“That is just one small example, I could give you others, and one thing I was very proud to do as Minister of Transport, with the Taoiseach, was to turn the sod on the Gort to Tuam motorway, I hope things like that are evidence of the fact that there is a lot more I want to do.”

Role for Kenny?
When asked what he thought of Enda Kenny’s leadership and future prospects, Leo Varadkar expressed hope that the outgoing Taoiseach might still want to make a meaningful contribution to his party and country.
“I think it is important to say it again, to extend my thanks to Enda Kenny for what he has done for our country and our party, bringing our party from what people thought was terminal decline in 2002 to a point where we are the largest and most popular party in the state. He also brought our country from the brink of bankruptcy to a situation now where we are back on the road to prosperity. Being Taoiseach is a tough job, you get beaten up a lot by the public and the media, but I think once he is out of that job people will have a chance to objectively address his contribution as Taoiseach and I think history is going to be very good to him. It will record him as somebody who gave Ireland its future back, and just look at the difference between countries that went down different paths, like Greece for example, and look where they are now.
“I hope as well that Enda still has a role to play, he is a young man both physically and intellectually, I haven’t had this conversation with him yet and it would be presumptuous to have it through the media, but he will remain president of the party, until at least November. I haven’t given enormous consideration to any role Enda might have as I have to keep my focus entirely on this campaign, on asking TDs senators, councillors and members to come out and support me and give me a mandate to lead the party. It’s dangerous if you start getting yourself into the mindset that you’ve already won, because then you start to make mistakes so I try to banish all thoughts of that for now.”

A cabinet calling?
While heaping praise on the job being done by Minister of State for Rural Affairs, Michael Ring, Mr Varadkar was similarly coy on Ring’s prospects of ascending to a full ministry. As Taoiseach, it would be his prerogative to reshuffle the cabinet and promote and demote as he likes. He also robustly defended his former junior minister’s record when asked about the slack Deputy Ring has taken in some sections of the national media for what is perceived by some commentators as a funding bias towards Mayo.
“For the same reason I’ve given you [when asked about a potential job for Enda Kenny] I can’t really comment on that, but what I can say to you is that I really appreciate Michael’s support. I asked him to introduce me at my launch, I did that for a reason, and I’ve never underestimated his talents and abilities and what he could bring to the table. He is a good man to have in your corner.
“I wouldn’t pay too much regard to any slack Minister Ring got in the national press, anything that was delivered locally here by Michael stacks up, the sports grants were all top class projects that perhaps should have been funded in the past and Mayo actually lost out to other counties. I don’t think anyone can doubt the value of the Gathering or the Wild Atlantic Way [other initiatives Minister Ring worked on], which have benefitted all parts of the country.”

Local endorsement
Speaking in Deputy Ring’s office on Quay Street in the town, where The Mayo News staged an ambush of sorts on the unsuspecting politicians, after spotting Minister Varadkar walking there once the funeral cortege had filed through Westport and left for Aughavale Cemetery, Michael Ring was emphatic in his endorsement of Mr Varadkar.  
“I’ve worked with Leo for the last three and a half years and before that I worked with him on the front bench [in opposition] and he is the right man in the right place at the right time to lead this country, his record stands out for itself.
“If anything has developed the west it has been the Wild Atlantic Way and what it has done for areas that never had tourists in the past or for many years, they are coming back again now. Every time I approached Leo on it in the Department [of Transport, Tourism and Sport] we worked in partnership, and there were areas in there which I didn’t work on, but he always looked after me and looked after the west. I have to say to members that I am asking for their support for Leo, he is the best man for the west of Ireland, he is the best man at this particular time to lead Fine Gael and he has a particular appeal that other people just don’t have.
“Simon Coveney is a very nice guy and we are very lucky, and it has been said at the meetings that any other party would give their right arm to have two candidates of the calibre we have, but I believe Leo is the best candidate.”

Procedure
Enda Kenny had to officially resign or be ousted or there could not have been a leadership contest in Fine Gael. Voting by Fine Gael members and councillors is taking place throughout this week for the party’s new leader across Ireland, and the outcome of the election should be known this Friday, June 2, when the parliamentary party votes. The winner will be the next leader of Fine Gael.
In order for that person to become Taosieach, Enda Kenny will have to visit Aras an Uachtarain to deliver his resignation as Taoiseach to President Higgins. The DΡil is not sitting next week so this is unlikely to happen before the DΡil resumes on June 13. Following his resignation, a vote on the next Taoiseach will be held in the chamber.
If all goes as expected, Fianna FΡil will not put forward a candidate and will abstain from this vote while the Independent Alliance will support the Fine Gael nomination [likely after some posturing and playing hardball in the meantime over constituency wish lists and ministerial positions]. Thus the sitting Fine Gael and Independents coalition [with support from Fianna FΡil] should hold a majority over potential other candidates from Sinn Fein and others and continue in government under a new leader. Therefore, the winner of this week’s Fine Gael leadership contest will likely become the fourteenth person to hold the office of Taoiseach of Ireland. However, time has repeatedly shown us that nothing can be taken for granted in politics.