Olwyn returns, 14 years after quitting her seat
FINE GAEL TDs and senators believe Taoiseach Simon Harris has sent ‘a significant message’ to his party via the selection of former Fine Gael TD Olwyn Enright as the party’s ‘surprise’ director of elections.
Ms Enright has been appointed as the party’s director of organisation which includes election planning, strategy, messaging and campaign planning.
The TD for Laois-Offaly from 2002 to 2011 said in August 2010, while expecting her second child, that she would not stand again, citing pressures of juggling family life and career.
Informed sources within Fine Gael have said: ‘This is Simon seizing control of the election campaign and taking over the party. The old Leo regime is being eased out.’
Another source said: ‘Appointing Olwyn covers a lot of bases. It will be key to attracting female candidates and to winning back rural Ireland.
‘It is sending a significant message about the direction we are taking.
Fine Gael is returning to its law-and-order, rural Ireland roots.’
Ms Enright, whose father Tom Enright was a Laois-Offaly TD and senator for three decades, had a brief but dramatic political career.
She was one of the few new TDs Fine Gael elected in the Michael Noonan 2002 meltdown and the one to retain the sole Fine Gael Laois-Offaly seat.
One source said of the election of the then 28-year-old Enright – who is married to departing Donegal FG TD Joe McHugh – that ‘Fine Gael embraced her with disbelief. She was the proof that a party that appeared to be on the point of abolition could attract young women. She became an icon, a sort of lovely girl brought out for all photographic occasions.’
Ms Enright’s rise stalled dramatically after she backed Richard Bruton’s heave against Enda Kenny in 2010.
One source from the time noted: ‘The Enrights and the Kennys were very close. Olwyn would have been a minister for ten years if she backed Enda.
‘When she didn’t, Enda cast her into outer darkness like some fallen woman. Olwyn was exiled forever.’
Commenting on her return, one Fine Gael source said: ‘One of the few remaining points of difference between FG and FF is that Harris wants to create a party comfortable among women.
‘He is the first FG leader since Garret Fitzgerald to reside in this space.
‘The Taoiseach continues to surprise. Everyone thought the most highprofile return would be Kate [O’Connell]. Instead, it’s Olwyn… and where is Kate by the way?’
‘Fine Gael embraced her with disbelief’