Leadership

Kenny calls for radical overhaul of Irish politics

24.07.2009
Ireland cannot fix its economy until it fixes its political system, the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has claimed.

Speaking at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal yesterday evening, Kenny called for a radical overhaul of Ireland’s political system.

“Our political system is broken. Our political culture is discredited. We cannot fix our economy or create a just society unless and until we also fix our politics,” Kenny told delegates.

Kenny said that there appears to be a “completely false” view in Ireland that political reform has nothing to do with the real economy. “It was our political system and its weakness that fatally undermined our economy,” he told delegates.

The Fine Gael leader said he was in favour of reducing the number of TDs, but noted that the country would need to go further down the road of political change.

He said he intends to appoint a transition team to oversee and plan the commencement of effective work for the next Government.

“As Taoiseach, I intend to be the enforcer of government decisions and policy,” Kenny said.

“The Ministers who don’t measure up will be moved on and Ministers who abuse their positions will be dismissed.”

Kenny also accused the Government of sidelining and ignoring the potential of Ireland’s public servants and said that Fine Gael would “dismantle the command and control model in the public sector, and give responsibility to those who know best. The people on the front-line.”

The recently published McCarthy report was an “absolutely damning indictment” of the way that Government has been run for the last decade, Kenny said.

He also said he accepted that public-sector numbers would have to come down, but that his party was “deeply concerned” at the idea of social-welfare cuts.