Kenny handshake, chat and cuppa - ''just being sociable,'' says Grealish
Date Published: {J}
No! TD Noel Grealish is not “playing footsie” with Fine Gael. I know Enda Kenny was on Galway Bay FM and paid glowing tribute to Grealish and said that he could work with him – but, all they did was have a cuppa together in the Dail.
There is about as much chance of Independent Grealish joining Fine Gael’s ticket in Galway West as there is of Ballinasloe’s Dr. John Barton joining Labour. Grealish’s background is all Fianna Fail, and, in the case of Dr. John Barton, all the connections are Fine Gael going back for years. Neither is for switching.
Labour’s Eamon Gilmore might like to have Barton on board the Labour Galway East election ticket, but it just won’t happen, much though Gilmore might wish to add the Barton name to Labour’s hope of snatching a seat in that four-seater area of which Gilmore is a native.
The questions over Noel Grealish and Fine Gael arose in the wake of that week in which Enda Kenny survived as leader of Fine Gael. Noel Grealish was passing through the Dail restaurant and spotted Enda Kenny and Phil Hogan TD sitting together.
Grealish says he went over and congratulated Kenny, and was invited to sit down and join them for the cuppa. Anyone who knows Grealish will know that he is sociable and good company at any time ..... and any decision to join Fine Gael would alienate a huge block of his Fianna Fail and PD connections that are at the very core of his political existence as a TD.
A few days after that cuppa in the Leinster House, Enda Kenny was being interviewed on Galway Bay FM and was asked a hypothetical question as to whether, if the Dail voting situation was close after the next General Election, Kenny could work with Noel Grealish, though former PD Grealish is now supporting the present Brian Cowen-led coalition.
In his reply, Enda Kenny said that, of course, he could work with Noel Grealish, he was a friend of his and was an excellent TD and constituency worker. It sparked a series of phone calls to Grealish’s office wondering whether the Carnmore man with all those FF background connections, was thinking of going with Fine Gael.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.