Varadkar worried Fine Gael might only win '20-something seats' in next election
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has admitted that if Fine Gael goes into government again there is a possibility the party could win “only twenty-something” seats in the next election.
'That worries party activists,' Mr Varadkar told Newstalk Breakfast.
“There's huge worry within the party that if we go into government again that we will be a diminished force and the counter-argument that I'm making, first of all, is that it is always the right thing to do by the country to have our party in government, but this does have to be a programme for government that has our stamp on it.
“We're not going to get our way on everything, just like the Greens feel very strongly about things like the seven per cent target for climate action, things like ending the policy of direct provision, we feel very strongly about keeping the public finances in order, because that's what we need to do to have a sustainable society about tax policy, business, enterprise, agriculture - so it will need to have our stamp on it if I can recommend it to our party and tell them it's right to take this risk again.”
The Taoiseach had been responding to a question about the fate of Fine Gael in the next election.
Mr Varadkar said he did worry about the fate of the party, but he worried more about the fate of the country.
“I worry more about the fate of the country if we don't step into the breach, and if we don't form part of the next government because without us it's going to be a government involving Sinn Féin and maybe far-left groups, they don't really have any answers when it comes to getting people back to work or getting the public finances back in order, it's just populism really.
“As always my party will put the country before our own interests, that does worry a lot of people. I've been spending a lot of time the last couple of weeks speaking to members and councillors and party activists and loyalists and what they say to me is - and what I hear loud and clear - they say, we'd 76 seats in 2011, we had two terms in government, at least in our mind we did a good job, the country is in a better place than it was back in 2011 and we've half the seats we had then.
“And if we go into government for a third time maybe we'll only have twenty-something seats the next time, that really does worry people. Particularly activists who get nothing, they're not on the payroll, they're just everyday people who knock on doors, trying to convince their friends and family to vote for Fine Gael.”
On the same programme, Mr Varadkar also warned that anyone receiving the pandemic payment who turns down an offer of a return to work will become ineligible for it.
The Taoiseach acknowledged the situation was “not fair” and “not sustainable”, but said that the government had little option but to move forward with it as the outbreak developed.
“This came about for a particular reason. We said the best thing to do would be to give everyone maybe 70 per cent or 80 per cent of their previous income and, with that volume of people losing their jobs so quickly, we worked out within hours that it would take weeks to administer that and half a million people would have been left with little or no money for a very long period time.”
"Officials are currently working on ways to improve the system," he said, adding the warning that anyone who refuses to return to their job will be refused the payment.
“If somebody is offered their job back and they refuse to take their job back, they lose eligibility for the payment.
“We will need to do a bit of enforcement around that, but before we start to do any of these we wanted to make sure that people could actually live.”
