On the airwaves:Enda Kenny threw himself at the media with six interviews, writes Shane Hegarty
Yesterday, Fine Gael threw Enda Kenny at the media in the hope that some of him would stick.
According to TV3's tally, he did four radio and two television interviews in almost as many hours. These were his last gasping strides towards the finish line.
Anyone brave enough to follow him through the day heard the same phrases repeated. "Ambition for yourself and your country . . . a vision of what country you want in five years' time . . . these are fully-costed policies . . . which I personally stand over through my contract".
Two of his interviews were with the same interviewer. Kenny met Matt Cooper first on Today FM's The Last Word, and then on TV3's Polls Apart, and they even had an almost identical set-to about the exact breakdown of the promised 2,000 extra gardaí. They were like pantomime actors, returning to the evening performance after a successful matinée.
However, it is perhaps a measure of the Fine Gael leader's performance in last week's televised debate that four days later he was still answering the questions raised by Bertie Ahern.
Having struggled a little with the figures on Thursday night, he now seemed intent on proving that his economic policies were not scribbled on the back of an envelope. Which is why the detail of the 2,300 extra hospital beds was a recurring theme. It will come, he repeated, from the "€2.4 billion for capital health projects, which have not been prioritised by this Government". But he had already made this point several times last week, so it was quite revealing that he had to make it so often yesterday.
Bryan Dobson, on RTÉ's Six-One News, was particularly reluctant to let this subject go, asking more than once: "If everything's a priority, how do you prioritise?" Dobson was particularly combative, recognising that the Fine Gael leader had entered these final few days on the defensive, looking for some forward momentum but constantly having to take a step back to deal with questions about the television debate and unfavourable poll results.
At times, Kenny became stuck in a puddle of statistics and figures and "fully-costed policies". At a time when precision and aggression is needed, he occasionally gave the impression that he was dashing about, plugging his finger in the gaps in his policies.
But it was about one last round of job interviews before Thursday. "I think you have to have listening skills," he said on Today FM (or RTÉ, or possibly TV3, or maybe all three). "I think you have a vision of what you want the country to be in five years." And he ended most interviews with a line about the voters having the choice between "fear and negativity under Fianna Fáil or hope and delivery under Fine Gael and Labour".
Although he did manage a variation on The Last Word, saying that voters had to ask if they wanted "more smugness, more arrogance, more conceit . . ." At which point it was hard not to have cruel thoughts about Pat Rabbitte.