THE COUNTRY needs leadership and hope like never before, but the Taoiseach isn’t providing them, Mr Cowen has been told by one of his own party backbenchers.
The confrontation took place at one of a series of breakfast meetings the Taoiseach has been holding with Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas.
Kildare South TD Seán Power told Mr Cowen that when he became Taoiseach in 2008 there was “great hope for him in the parliamentary party and in the country at large”.
But the former junior minister said that, two years later, “people are disappointed to varying degrees and some are very disappointed indeed”.
Criticising the Taoiseach’s style of communication, he said Mr Cowen had chosen to do his job “despite” the media rather than taking a positive approach to coverage.
Pointing out that “communications are very important”, the Kildare deputy contrasted the Taoiseach’s approach with that of Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan who, he said, had “explained to the people” that there were great economic difficulties and that “the people respected him and accepted that”.
Mr Power said the Taoiseach “had decided on a different approach” but this was “not working”. As a consequence there had been “disastrous” results for the party in the local and European elections last year and it would be “the same in the general election”.
Concluding his remarks at the meeting, Mr Power said that: “The country never needed leadership and hope as much as now and the Taoiseach isn’t providing them.”
Senior political sources said others at the meeting, which took place last Thursday week, had demurred from Mr Power’s remarks and expressed appreciation to the Taoiseach for his increased engagement with ordinary members of the public.
Mr Power was a member of the so-called “Gang of Four” which proposed a motion of no confidence in then taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1991.
Last year, he was dropped as minister of state at the Department of Communications when Mr Cowen reduced the number of junior ministries from 20 to 15.
Meanwhile, dissident Tipperary South TD Mattie McGrath has criticised Mr Cowen and Green Party Environment Minister John Gormley as “weak leaders”.
Mr McGrath, who lost the Fianna Fáil whip when he voted against the stag-hunting Bill told the Irish Field: “We have two weak leaders and we are caught in a mish-mash between the two of them.”
Commenting on his vote, Mr McGrath said: “I had take a stand. I had to speak out. I wasn’t going to be part of a sham.” He said it was “a case of the tail wagging the dog with the Greens and Fianna Fáil”.