Taoiseach deflects questions on Brennan demotion

The Taoiseach has acknowledged that the position of Minister of State Mr Conor Lenihan was "regularised" only after yesterday's Cabinet meeting, following confusion over whether former minister of state, Dr Jim McDaid, was still officially a Minister.

Mr Ahern also deflected further attempts to question him about reports that the former minister for transport, Mr Séamus Brennan, had threatened to resign his Dáil seat if demoted from the Cabinet.

Labour leader Mr Pat Rabbitte asked if the Taoiseach got a letter of resignation from minister McDaid. Dr McDaid "said he was sacked and if that was so it would have required a Government decision" which meant that the Taoiseach came into the Dáil with 18 junior ministers instead of 17, "if Minister McDaid had not been removed by any Government decision". Mr Ahern said in the normal process that "whether Ministers are resigning or asked to resign, I receive letters" from the outgoing Minister.

In the case of former minister Dr McDaid, the Taoiseach did not ask for the letter on Wednesday when he met him and when the new Cabinet was announced but the next morning.

"So when I gave the list on Thursday morning I hadn't got that letter but had since received that letter, so the statutory duty was now fulfilled." There was some laughter when Mr Rabbitte asked if Mr Lenihan's position was now "regularised", to which the Taoiseach replied that it was "totally regularised" as of yesterday morning.

Mr Rabbitte said, "I don't want to start any shock waves in sub-Saharan Africa at the prospect of them being deprived of my constituency colleague, Deputy Lenihan", in reference to Mr Lenihan's appointment to Development Co-operation Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs overseas aid section.

Pressing the Taoiseach on Mr Brennan's new portfolio, Mr Rabbitte had asked the Taoiseach: "What did the poor people of Ireland do to deserve Séamus Brennan as Minister for Social Welfare? He doesn't want the job. He has clearly no interest in it." Mr Rabbitte asked if Mr Brennan had threatened to resign his seat when he heard that Minister Tom Kitt was to be in the Cabinet and he was to be dropped. "Were representations made to retain him and by whom and why did he end up in social welfare?"

The Taoiseach said that Minister Brennan would be a "very good Minister for Social and Family Affairs, and as a person who has been a good constituency politician I think he will be very suited to that - a change from his last post in Transport but I do believe he will do an excellent job. And I do not believe he will be quite so Scrooge-like as your own former colleague and president of your party," he said in reference to former minister and Labour MEP Mr Proinsias de Rossa.

Mr Rabbitte said that if the Taoiseach thought Ministers were not performing in their existing Departments "why should anybody out there believe they would perform in their new jobs?" The Labour leader asked if Mr Brennan's decisions at Dublin Airport were not Government decisions. "Are you saying he was off on a frolic of his own at Dublin Airport and that the new Minister for Transport will behave differently or was he actually pursuing Government policy?" Mr Ahern reiterated that all Ministers were equal. They had a job to do and by moving people and bringing in new people "that brings new vibrancy". He stressed he was "not going to take lectures from parties who when in Government never served the people who were in need in this country".

Most things in the social welfare code were initiatives of Fianna Fáil," he said.