DESPITE MANY achievements, the Fine Gael party were "losers" who would be forgotten by history unless they achieved power, broadcaster and rugby commentator George Hook told the Opposition party's "think-in" in Co Clare.
"Why are you losers? Because losers you are," the Newstalk radio presenter said in what a party spokesman described as a motivational address at a private session of the conference yesterday morning.
Asked to comment afterwards, party leader Enda Kenny said Hook's "dressing-room analysis" was very worthwhile and Fine Gael had no intention of being in second place after the next election.
In the course of his remarks, Hook said: "As I came in here, I felt I was walking in the footprints of greatness. As I walked in here, it crossed my mind that at the most difficult period in this nation's history, after independence, when we could have descended into anarchy, it was a government under WT Cosgrave that saved the nation .. . immediately after World War Two, it was John A Costello who made us proud to be true Republicans, for he declared this nation to be a Republic . . .
"And it crossed my mind as I walked in here that it was Garret FitzGerald who was asked to come to the rescue of an ailing economy and took very hard decisions that maybe this party suffered for, for many years.
"But this party has never, in its long and distinguished history, been afraid of taking those hard decisions. So, why are you losers? Because losers you are.
"Who was number two when Margaret Thatcher made her bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party? Who was second to Ronnie Delaney in Melbourne in 1956? And who was the under-bidder to Denis O'Brien when he bought over the mobile phone licence?
"Coming second is irrelevant. And your history and the length of your history and your standards are irrelevant to you, as long as you stay second. In rugby, losing becomes a habit, just as winning can become a habit," Mr Hook said.
At a news conference later Mr Kenny said: "The point he was making was that, winners . . . have belief, have discipline, have organisation and have a clear message.
And the point he was making to the Fine Gael party, which didn't win the last election but which made the biggest recovery in Irish political history from 2002, including very substantial gains at local elections and in the European elections, was that it's not good enough just to be good, you've got to win.
"Winners are what count in this business and the place to be is in power, and I do think that his dressing-room analysis for Fine Gael politicians here was very worthwhile in that regard.
"So I think the clarion-call that you heard in the Radisson was a call to challenge Fine Gael . . . We have no intention . . . of being in second place on the next occasion.
"That's my agenda, that's the frontbench agenda, that's the party's agenda and we mean business to see this through. That's my reaction to George Hook," said Mr Kenny
