Cowen Puts Leadership To The Vote

Fianna Fail will vote on Tuesday on whether or not they want Brian Cowen to remain as leader of the party.

Mr Cowen spent the weekend consulting with his party colleagues, after a leadership crisis sparked by record low ratings in opinion polls, and a controversy over his contacts with disgraced banker Sean Fitzpatrick.

Mr Cowen said he would table a motion of confidence in his leadership at Tuesday's parliamentary party meeting, and the vote would be by secret ballot.

He indicated he had no intention of resigning, and believed that stepping down would lead to confusion and loss of authority.

But he acknowledged that there was "an issue" around his leadership, and he wanted to resolve it quickly.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin, the favourite to replace Cowen as leader, has indicated that he will not be supporting the Taoiseach in the vote of confidence.

He announced on Sunday night that he believes the party needs a new leader before a general election.

The latest crisis for Brian Cowen erupted last week when new revelations emerged about his contacts with former Anglo Irish Bank boss Sean Fitzpatrick.

The Sunday Times published extracts from a new book called The Fitzpatrick Tapes, in which Fitzpatrick gave details of two previously undisclosed meetings with the Taoiseach in 2008.

In March 2008, Mr Cowen who was then Finance Minister and on a St. Patrick's Day visit to Vietnam, took a phone call from Mr Fitzpatrick.

Anglo's share price was beginning to collapse, and the Anglo boss was concerned after finding out that businessman Sean Quinn had used financial instruments called "Contracts for Difference" to buy a stake of around 25% in the bank.

Mr Cowen says he took the proper course of action and referred Mr Fitzpatrick to the Central Bank on that occasion.

Later in July 2008, weeks after becoming Taoiseach, Mr Cowen played a round of golf with Mr Fitzpatrick and Fintan Drury, a close friend of Mr Cowen's but also a former director of Anglo.

Mr Cowen insists, and Mr Fitzpatrick's version of events backs him up, that they did not discuss Anglo Irish bank during the golf game or at dinner afterwards.

However the revelations provoked major controversy, because of the context in which the meetings took place.

We know that Sean Quinn reduced his stake in Anglo to 15% by July 2008, with a golden circle of businessmen allegedly purchasing the shares using money borrowed from Anglo in an apparent attempt to prop up Anglo's share price.

There is no suggestion that Mr Cowen had any knowledge of this.

These transactions are the subject of investigations by both Garda fraud squad and the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

Opposition parties say it's simply stretches credibility that the Taoiseach would not have discussed what was going on at Anglo during his round of golf in July with Mr Fitzpatrick, given the share price's collapse.

And the government included Anglo in a blanket bank guarantee just two months after the golf game in September 2008, a move which many blame for the extent of Ireland's economic crisis as it linked the country's sovereign debt to that of the troubled banks.

The government insists it did not know the extent of Anglo's problems at the time.

The controversy had almost died away for the Taoiseach, when Sinn Fein's Caoimhin O'Caolain landed another bombshell during Dail questioning on Wednesday night.

Mr O'Caolain, by coincidence, had been attending a wedding at Druid's Glen on the day of the famous golf outing, and he recalled seeing other people at the dinner table with Mr Cowen.

The Taoiseach confirmed that along with Mr Fitzpatrick, Mr Drury and his driver, two other people did join the party for dinner afterwards - economist Alan Gray, and businessman Gary McCann, who happened to be another director of Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Cowen says the men discussed the economy in general, but did not talk about Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Gray, a respected independent economic commentator has backed up this account, of events.

But the political damage it caused the Taoiseach was immense - the optics were all wrong, and even if nothing improper had been discussed, why had the Taoiseach, during several days of controversy, not revealed these details until he was forced into it?

The image of the Taoiseach having a cosy relationship with senior executives from Anglo was cemented even harder than it already was.

By Thursday there were murmurings of discontent from within his own party.

This was sparked, not only by Mr Cowen's handling of the controversy, but also an opinion poll which showed support for the party at just 14% and spooked backbenchers.

Several TDs spoke openly about the need for a change in leadership, and rumours swirled around Leinster House that Brian Cowen was about to fall on his own sword.

But in the end, he fought on, saying he had no intention of resigning and that there were procedures in the party for anyone who wanted to seek a change of leadership.

He told members of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party that it was time to back him or sack him.

He embarked on a consultation process, whereby his door would be open to anyone in the party who wanted to come to him to discuss the leadership issue.

Those consultations continued through Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile, Labour is to table a Dail motion of no confidence in the Government Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the coalition was clearly divided, politically dysfunctional and incapable of leading the country to recovery.

He said Mr Cowen and his colleagues were focused on their own party, and internal differences, at a time when they should be focused on creating jobs and solving the country's problems.