NOEL WHELAN:The blindsiding of Róisín Shortall by James Reilly has shown up her powerlessness
RÓISÍN SHORTALL this week issued a statement of regret at the announcement that the chief executive of the Health Service Executive, Cathal Magee, was stepping aside. She also let it be known that she learned of his decision through the media.
In so doing she has shone some light on relationships between Ministers in the Department of Health. Shortall has responsibility for primary care which, at first sight, makes the fact that she was blindsided on Magee’s resignation all the more remarkable.
Shortall was a contender for a Cabinet position when the Government was formed and may therefore feel she was due more respect. Like all Ministers of State, she doubtless suffers the frustrations that go with the lower rank. It may have come as some comfort to her to discover, later in the week, that Minister for Health James Reilly’s Cabinet colleagues were similarly unaware of Magee’s impending departure until they read about it in the newspapers.
It may also be some comfort to Shortall to know her situation is not unique in this country or in political systems generally.
In his diaries, A View From the Foothills, former British Labour Party MP Chris Mullin related how he was reluctant to accept a junior ministerial appointment at the John Prescott-led department of transport and the environment when offered it by Tony Blair.
At the time he was chair of the Westminster home affairs committee and was conflicted about giving that up for the lowest rank in government. He decided to accept Blair’s offer but as time passed he came to regret the decision.
Hundreds of entries in his diary during the relevant years gave expression to his frustration at the impotence of his position. Some days he bemoaned in his diary the uselessness of his job, “the lowest form of life in John Prescott’s universe”.
On the advice of friends who had previously served at junior ministerial rank, Mullin chose to focus on three specific and modest policy objectives – a ban or a reduction on night-time flights into Heathrow, a ban on the planting of fast-growing leylandii hedges and reform of the ministerial transport system.
He achieved no substantial progress on any of these objectives. At the end of his time in the department, a ban on speedboats in the Lake District was, he wrote, his only lasting imprint on policy.
Mullin was subsequently appointed junior minister at the department of overseas development. Once there, however, he found international development secretary Clare Short was so effective and dominant that the department did not need a second minister.
Many Ministers of State here with ambitions to shape policy or progress their careers find their jobs equally frustrating.
There is a popular misconception that Ministers of State are second in command in their departments. Nothing could be further from the truth. They enjoy office (and, in the case of those with more than one department, multiple offices) but have very little power. They have no assigned role in the departmental management structure.
In the Dáil, Ministers of State are occasionally allocated a couple of questions during Ministers’ questions. They are often called to shepherd the more tedious Bills through committee stage. They are frequently called upon to read prepared scripts from their departments, or other departments, in late-night adjournment debates.
Outside Leinster House, Ministers of State must satisfy themselves with the crumbs of engagements and trips from their Minister’s diary – what he or she cannot do or could not be bothered doing.
Ministers of State have none of the freedom of backbenchers and are locked out of any effective role in government. Even in areas assigned to them, they have little autonomy. The senior Minister negotiates with the Department of Finance and is therefore likely to grab the best media opportunities.
It would also be wrong to assume Ministers and their Ministers of State communicate well with each other.
In many departments, there are no formal arrangements for the Minister to meet his or her Minister of State. Ministers and their Ministers of State can go weeks without even speaking to each others. Most issues are sorted out between their respective private offices. The departmental annals are littered with accounts of the silent or at times sour relationships between Ministers and Ministers of State, even when they are both from the same political party.
The best approach for Ministers of State is to seek to carve out a distinct portfolio on specific issues.
Some of the current crop have been fortunate enough to be appointed to departments where the workload is now so onerous, and the engagement at European level so intense, that the Minister of State, where able, gets an opportunity to shine. Lucinda Creighton and Brian Hayes are examples of this.
Other Ministers of State have managed to become associated in the public mind with individual initiatives. Alan Kelly tackled taxi regulation and to a less rewarding extent is known as the Minister dealing with integrated ticketing for public transport. Dinny McGinley has recently been associated clearly with the recent Gaeltacht Bill.
Shortall has carved a significant profile for her proposals to intensify alcohol regulation. She has been so active in that regard that she has even provoked public or at least semi- public rebuke from senior colleagues, including Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney.
Her proposals on alcohol are both worthy and necessary. She faces quite a struggle in getting them implemented. Her task is made all the more difficult by the fact that she is merely a Minister of State.