Do we expect too much from politicians who take their duties to the country seriously? Earlier this week, I attended a large public meeting organised by Fine Gael in Kildare at which the Taoiseach was the main guest and speaker.

I thought Enda Kenny looked tired as he went through, in his characteristically downbeat way, his schedule for the last few weeks. I wondered how any human being could keep up such a timetable. He was barely back from Japan when he went to the White House for a St Patrick’s Day shamrock presentation with President Trump as well as a round of speeches and conversations with key political and business figures.

Given the unpredictability of Mr Trump, it could have all gone horribly wrong but in fact, there was widespread praise for the Taoiseach as he raised difficult issues in a non-confrontational way. Then we all saw him jet off to Malta for a full summit of EU leaders, having first met the new British Prime Minister Theresa May as well as later meeting the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Brexit and the potential consequences for Ireland were to the forefront in all of these meetings, so they took an enormous amount of preparation as regards technical detail, but they also call for an ability to be simply able to click with people, to present the Irish case with firmness but not at the same time antagonising people with an objectionable abrasiveness.

Position understood

It’s very clear that Ireland’s position and exposure to the UK leaving the EU is now understood and acknowledged by all the main players from Commissioner Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator, to the main EU politicians and our concerns have been fully acknowledged in the official releases from London and the EU capitals.

And all the time we have the utterly ludicrous and, in many ways, dishonest wrangling on charging for water, as well as a continuous jostling in the battle for the Fine Gael leadership. No wonder he is tired, but as he visibly prepares to stand down, he leaves the country with almost full employment and Government borrowing on a continuing downward course to where it is well below the Maastricht guidelines. A member of the Dáil since 1975, Mr Kenny is clearly not a rich man nor has office gone to his head.

Not surprisingly, the place was packed – ostensibly, the meeting was on Brexit and there was a full panel of speakers including a professor from Maynooth University who spoke on one of the unsung triumphs of EU membership – the whole university/European student exchange programme, the Erasmus programme.

However, Professor O’Brennan also touched on the research funding coming from Brussels but most of all, he stressed as the Professor of European Integration at Maynooth the enormous achievement of the EU in achieving a historically unheard of 70 years of peace in Europe, accompanied by social and economic progress and a commitment to funding and fostering development in the third world, especially in Africa. The Chamber of Commerce representative spoke of the huge industrial presence in the county, servicing local, European and global markets – companies such as Kerry Group, Intel, Hewlett Packard, all present because of Ireland’s EU membership.

At the end of the evening, the same issues remained. Agriculturally the difficulties in cheddar cheese and beef going from Ireland to the UK, the particular problems for Northern Ireland in terms of the dependence on the Single Farm Payment for income and the importance of the Republic as a destination for Northern milk and lamb.