Joe Walsh knows his way around the Department of Agriculture better than most, given that he has been a minister there for almost 10 of the past 12 years.
His supporters say it is an advantage because it has given him a detailed understanding of his brief, but his critics say he is in the same job too long.
The North Kerry Fine Gael TD, Jimmy Deenihan, who served as a minister of state in the Department during Mr Walsh's term in opposition from 1994 to 1997 says: "He gives the impression of being lethargic, laid back, even lazy." But the Fianna Fail TD for Cavan-Monaghan, Brendan Smith, who has many farmers among his constituents, disagrees: "Joe Walsh is a hard-working minister with a detailed knowledge of his brief. Unfortunately, some of his significant achievements in Europe have not always led to higher prices for farmers, but that is not his fault."
Away from politics, the views are equally mixed. Farming sources, while publicly critical of the Minister, privately say he is more vigorous in pursuit of their interests than might appear to be the case. Politically, Mr Walsh has survived the crucible of rural politics and managed to secure either a junior or senior ministry in every government in which Fianna Fail has participated since 1987. His career is a remarkable story of survival, given that since he was first elected to the Dail in 1977 he lost his Cork South West seat, was involved in a serious road accident, and was part of the socalled "gang of 22" which opposed Charles Haughey's leader ship in the early 1980s, a stand that could have consigned him to the backbenches for years. One of a large farming family, Mr Walsh went to school at Farranferris, the diocesan seminary. "Many people thought I would come home in the regalia of a clerical student, but I repaired to the Lilac ballroom in Enniskeane," he once remarked. It was there one night that he met Maire Donegan, a nurse, whom he married in 1970. They live with their five children in a Georgian house in Clonakilty's Emmet Square.
Mr Walsh graduated from UCC with a dairy science degree, and his early professional life as a dairy manager seemed like the ideal preparation for the tenancy of Agriculture House. He was elected to Cork County Council in 1974 and served on the county's committee of agriculture and vocational education committee.
He was elected to the Dail in 1977 as part of Jack Lynch's sweeping 20-seat majority, but he lost the seat four years later as bitter internal rivalries split the Fianna Fail organisation in Cork South West. That 1981 general election was a bruising time for Mr Walsh. The previous year, while driving home from a meeting at 5.30 a.m., he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed, suffering severe facial injuries and almost losing an eye. He was incapacitated for several months, which must have contributed to the loss of his Dail seat.
His wife arranged babysitters for their young children and drove him to canvass every Fianna Fail councillor in the State as part of the gruelling Seanad campaign. Despite his injuries, including an eye held in place by 35 micro-stitches, he won a seat and was back in the Dail in the general election which followed seven months later.
Despite Walsh's criticism of his leadership, Mr Haughey appointed him a minister of state for agriculture when Fianna Fail returned to power in 1987. He had a poor relationship with his senior minister, Mr Michael O'Kennedy, and was the recipient of much praise from Mr Haughey at the unveiling of the Goodman International development plan for the meat industry the same year.
Seven years later, in a bitter Dail exchange, the then Fine Gael spokeswoman on agriculture, Ms Avril Doyle, accused Mr Walsh of misleading the beef tribunal which investigated fraud in the beef industry. A visibly angry Mr Walsh hit back, claiming that Ms Doyle's assertion was a "most serious slur" on him personally. He added that his evidence to the tribunal was based, at all times, on his knowledge of the events leading to the government decision on the Goodman plan.
Because of their friendship with Ms Mary Harney, Mr Walsh and Charlie McCreevy were key players in the initial contact between Mr Haughey and the Progressive Democrats before the 1989 FF-PD coalition deal. It was Mr Walsh and Ms Harney, after a casual meeting in a Dublin restaurant, who set up a critical meeting betwen Mr Haughey and Des O'Malley.
Later, on Mr Haughey's instructions, Mr Walsh personally delivered a message to the PDs indicating Fianna Fail's willingness to open talks about the formation of a government.
Mr Walsh retained his junior ministry in the new government and was given the senior post when Albert Reynolds took over as party leader and taoiseach in 1992. In opposition, from 1994 to 1997, he was spokesman on social welfare and later agriculture, and was made Minister for Agriculture by Bertie Ahern when Fianna Fail returned to power in 1997.
Mr Walsh is personally popular with many backbenchers, who find him accessible on constituency matters and an assiduous attender at the party's parliamentary party meetings on agriculture. They say that some of his domestic achievements in areas such as control of farm pollution and dairy hygiene have been obscured by the focus on developments in Europe.
