Kenny, 59, vowed to solve a bank-bailout crisis that has overwhelmed Ireland’s finances and required an emergency rescue by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. He said terms of the EU-IMF loans must be renegotiated to make them more affordable for Ireland and enable the country’s recovery from record deficits and double-digit unemployment.Kenny was elected prime minister unopposed with 117 of the parliament’s 166 lawmakers voting “yes” to his candidacy.Just 27 opposed him. It was the first time in Irish history that a prime minister faced no rival candidate.Kenny was to unveil his Cabinet later Wednesday after receiving his seal of office from Ireland’s ceremonial head of state, President Mary McAleese. The Cabinet was expected to feature 10 members of Kenny’s conservative Fine Gael party and five from his coalition partners, left-wing Labour.Fine Gael won 76 seats and Labour 37 in Ireland’s Feb. 25 election — both record highs. Together they have created the biggest parliamentary majority of any Irish government.Fine Gael and Labour have governed Ireland together in six previous coalitions, most recently in 1995-97, when Ireland’s now-dead Celtic Tiger economy first began to roar.Both parties surged to victory on a wave of public anger against the Fianna Fail government of former Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who oversaw the ill-fated bailout of five Dublin banks that faced insolvency when Ireland’s property boom collapsed in 2008.The ongoing struggle to prop up five Dublin banks is expected to cost taxpayers more than €50 billion ($70 billion). In November, it forced a reluctant Cowen to negotiate an EU-IMF credit line that could total €67.5 billion ($93 billion).
