Carey eyes-up front-bench role

Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey has told The Clare Champion that he expects to talk to party leader Enda Kenny in the coming week, with a view to possibly being appointed to a front-bench position.

However, Deputy Carey said that if he is not handed a front bench role, following his support of Enda Kenny in the Fine Gael leadership battle last week, he will accept the decision.
“Obviously, that’s going to be a decision for Enda Kenny to make. I have spoken with Enda Kenny. I sat with him on the front bench yesterday although I haven’t formally sat down and spoken with him as of yet. I would expect to do so in the coming week,” Deputy Carey said.
“I’m a Fine Gael man. I won’t be disappointed if I don’t get an appointment to the front bench. I’ll play my role and I think our target should be to retain two Fine Gael seats in Clare in the next election and to return Fine Gael to government, where we should be,” he added.
The Clarecastle TD acknowledged that he owed Enda Kenny, given that the embattled Fine Gael leader had placed Deputy Carey on the party ticket before the 2007 General Election, after Clare Fine Gael had not nominated him.
“Certainly Enda Kenny saw in me the potential to win a seat for Fine Gael in Clare at the last election and he added me to the ticket.
“I repaid that faith by winning a Fine Gael seat, which was the first time in 20 years we returned two Fine Gael deputies in Clare. You have to take your hat off to Enda Kenny in that decision and certainly that would have been a factor in influencing my vote,” he explained.
Deputy Carey stressed his loyalty to his party.
“On entering public life as a public representative for Fine Gael, I signed a party pledge and the number one thing in that pledge is to be loyal to your leader, no matter who that leader is.
“That’s what I did last week and I’ll do again. I was disappointed with the timing of this upheaval, particularly as there was a motion of no confidence down in the Taoiseach and the Government for their gross mishandling of the economy.
“The last thing I felt that should have happened was that there should be a challenge to Enda Kenny’s leadership,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Pat Breen, who supported Richard Bruton’s leadership bid, says that he does not know if Joe Carey will be asked to serve on the party’s front bench or if his own decision will mitigate against his front-bench opportunities.
“Sometimes people are rewarded by the candidates they support. I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll be working for the people of Clare. That’s my first priority. We’re within a year and a half or two years of an election,” he said.
“In relation to who’ll get the plum jobs, that’s a matter for the party leader. He’ll make the decision on that. I think he has a very hard decision to make in the next week or 10 days because obviously he has to look at the situation in Dublin.
“He’s going to have to make a decision in relation to what deputies he’s going to put his front bench in the Dublin area.
“I think he will have to hold an olive branch out to some of the nine front-bench dissidents if he’s going to try to improve the vote in Dublin,” Deputy Breen added.
He described his decision to vote against Enda Kenny as a difficult one.
“It was a very difficult week for me personally. I suppose it was one of the most difficult political decisions of my life. At the time I made a decision that I felt was in the best interests of the party and the country. I’m a democrat. I have accepted the majority decision of the parliamentary party and Enda Kenny has shown that he is a man of steel,” Deputy Breen stated.
On another note, Deputy Carey doesn’t accept that Clare Fine Gael is split, as evidenced by last week’s Clare Champion poll of the 12 Fine Gael county councillors. Only three of them expressed total support for Deputy Kenny.
“I wouldn’t go along with that. I think what The Clare Champion did, along with other media sources, they tried to ask the question in a mischievous way. I wouldn’t say that a majority of councillors in Clare are opposed to Enda Kenny. As far as I could see, a lot of them couldn’t really make a decision on it,” Deputy Carey stated.
“A number of councillors stated their positions and some others didn’t come down on either side. I think it’s disingenuous to say they were opposed to Enda,” he added.
Deputy Breen said that the views of county councillors influenced his decision to vote against Enda Kenny.
“I consulted all the county councillors before I made a decision because I think councillors are people that are on the ground.
“They’re listening. But a decision has been made. Fine Gael is a democratic party.
“I think our members will respect the decision. I respect the decision. It’s back to business as usual – working on behalf of the people of Clare,” he concluded.