IN FAIRNESS to Enda Kenny, our young people are our future. And if we want those young people to engage with the political process, then politicians must themselves learn to engage, on their own terms, with the Facebook and Twitter generation.
Mr Kenny's Obama-style web forum therefore is not in itself a bad idea. What is, however, woefully bad is both its execution - the latte-slurping Fine Gael leader, after all, is no Obama - and Mr Kenny's over-reliance on what is still, in effect, a gimmick.
While hundreds of ordinary citizens will be able to post their comments about the state of the nation on this site, we are still no nearer to knowing what Mr Kenny's own policies really are - or what sort of Government he will form.
Indeed, those who today seek this information on the internet will know even less than they did before. The new web forum is not an addition to the old Fine Gael website; for a period of several weeks at least it replaces it.
This, sadly, is typical of the Fine Gael leader. Prior to his internet debut, Mr Kenny had barely been seen for a month - an absence so conspicuous that Michael Noonan felt obliged to issue a public reassurance that his leader was still around. Now he pops up on the internet - but only to canvass our views. This is no longer good enough. Mr Kenny remains the most likely successor to Brian Cowen as Taoiseach. This, however, is as much by default as anything else.
If Mr Kenny is indeed to lead this country, then we are entitled to know how he is going to do so - and where he hopes to lead us.
And he himself, instead of engaging in high-tech gimmickry, must stand up and tell us precisely that.
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