TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has been granted the political ‘gaffe of the year’ award by the Vincent Browne show. (He’ll be thrilled).

Mark Stedman Mark Stedman

Mick Wallace, junior minister Dara Murphy and recently-elected senator Mairia Cahill were also in the running.

Quite a gaffe

Enda gets the nod for his bombshell revelation about the time the Governor of the Central Bank kicked down the door of his office, shrieking excitedly about the urgent need for tanks to be placed outside every bank in the country.

That’s not quite right… But it’s not a million miles off.

What the Taoiseach actually said was that Patrick Honohan warned him during the crisis that the army might be needed to guard banks and ATMs, in the event of capital controls being implemented by the government.

You’ll recall the ensuing controversy after Kenny made the claims – first at home, at a Fine Gael fundraiser on 7 October, and then abroad, at a European People’s Party meeting in Madrid, later that month.

In an embarrassing climbdown, Kenny was later forced to clarify that there had been “no specific briefing” from the Governor.

Central Bank sources had been, they said, “puzzled” about the claim. And at the start of this month Dame Street confirmed it had no official record of it.

For the record, Mick Wallace was in the running for his unfortunately timed tweet about the Paris attacks, Dara Murphy’s nomination was (of course) down to his 200km taxpayer-funded garda lift to Dublin, and Mairia Cahill was on the list for her media-shy Seanad by-election strategy.

Here are some other winners from Vincent’s annual political awards:

• TD of the Year: Catherine Murphy 
• Minister of the Year: Brendan Howlin
• Politician of the Year: Jillian Van Turnhout
• Dáil Speech of the Year: Richard Boyd Barrett (for this)

The winners were selected by a  judging panel made up of Gavan Reilly of Today FM News, Harry McGee of the Irish Times, Sarah McInerney of The Sunday Times and Niamh Lyons from the Ireland edition of The Times of London.

Read: Enda now says ‘no specific briefing’ about putting the army around ATMs

Read: The army and the ATMs: Was Enda talking about the ‘most secret committee in government’?