REMEMBER WHEN RAY D’Arcy threatened to leave the country if Enda Kenny became Taoiseach?
This was back in 2010 – a year before the Fine Gael leader was, in fact, elected to the top job in Irish politics.
Kenny was having something of a torrid time, back in February 2010. George Lee had just quit as a TD, having been elected in a by-election just months previously - sending a stark message to his former boss as he quit.
“It’s true if he becomes Taoiseach I’m leaving the country,” D’Arcy said, on RTÉ’s Saturday Night Show (the programme’s no longer available online, but reports from the time say the comments were met with a ‘rapturous reception’ from the audience).
Asked this week whether he’d had many dealings with Kenny since, D’Arcy recommended checking out a piece Roisín Ingle of The Irish Times had done with the Taoiseach a few years ago.
“Her angle was that she was collecting questions from a number of people and that she was going to present them to him – and she asked me for a question,” he said.
The broadcaster submitted a question about mental health services and suicide. The Taoiseach’s response began with the words “Well, I thought Ray D’Arcy was going to emigrate if I became taoiseach”.
Said D’Arcy:
I just wanted to see what he had done, in particular. So that was the question… But he took an opportunity to get a [gestures with fist] at me.
The Ray D’Arcy Show returns to TV on RTÉ One tonight at 9.40pm.
– Camerawork and editing by Nicky Ryan
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