OPINION:The rejigging of the junior ministerial ranks matters little to the world outside politics, writes MARK HENNESSY.
ONCE UPON a time, Dáil Éireann would have been crowded with friends and supporters of the newly promoted on the day of a ministerial reshuffle. Not so yesterday. Or, at least, nothing like times past. Instead, there was a jaded air visible from a Government increasingly on the defensive. In truth, the reduction and rejigging of the junior ministerial ranks matters little to the world outside politics, politicians and those who feed on them.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen kept his own counsel during his deliberations, though the strategy followed seems to be one of retrenchment rather than expansion.
Normally, junior jobs are given partly with an eye to developing talent, or soothing the disaffected. They are also about naked constituency concerns. Sometimes, a junior posting, particularly in rural constituencies, can help to hold on to the third seat in a five-seater, or the second in a three-seater.
There was little of that yesterday. Fianna Fáil is in survival mode. Some in Cowen’s own ranks were surprised by the sacking of Carlow-Kilkenny’s John McGuinness, where FF holds three of the five seats. If anything, the southeast expected that McGuinness’s next move would be upwards. So, too, did McGuinness.
His relations with Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and officials in Enterprise, Trade and Employment have been difficult for some time – though not always to his discredit. But there were times when he could have been smarter in his dealings with people.
A maverick, McGuinness was troublesome before he was promoted by Bertie Ahern, constantly pointing out the failures of the administration. Once appointed, he railed against the inefficiencies of the public service – a dangerous thing to do in an enclosed world loyal to the creed of social partnership.
More recently, he fumbled when he agreed on local radio that Cowen and Brian Lenihan had made “a mess of the Budget”.
His departure would be potentially dangerous if he had a following among fellow Fianna Fáil TDs, but McGuinness does not, and he is not likely to build one. Most of them regard him as talented and a loner, but cantankerous. They were irritated more than anything else by his past outbursts, but the environment for his brand of straight-talking has become a little more benign since.
McGuinness is just one of seven demoted, and some of them will migrate to the corridor of the disaffected now populated by those who have lost out already under Cowen.
Every leader eventually has more people in this column than those to whom he can offer preferment. Bertie Ahern bought time and delayed matters by buying people off. Cowen is, perhaps, two steps into this inevitable ever-repeating political drama, but matters could become interesting if the European and local elections are bad.
The career of Meath’s Mary Wallace went south, as expected, while Tipperary North’s Máire Hoctor had clearly hoped against hope that she would be saved. There is not an iota of sympathy available for Wallace among colleagues, who were infuriated that she was brought back after she had been first sacked by Ahern. She tried yesterday to rewrite much of the history about her conduct then, but it does not wash most with those who know best what happened: her colleagues.
Hoctor failed to do much with her older people portfolio and she badly lost friends in high places when she wobbled during the over-70s medical card crisis last year.
FF has no chance of taking two seats in Tipperary North next time, given current conditions, so this, combined with her own lack of impact, did for her.
Unlike Hoctor, John Moloney, Cowen’s fellow constituency TD, came out of the over-70s crisis with internal credit for being prepared to hold the line. Moloney is Cowen’s link with the party councillors and he has spent much time on the road tending to them. It is a job that may shortly become more important.
Galway East’s Michael Kitt, who was appointed after his brother Tom fell has, in turn, fallen; but he has freed up space for his sister and Kildare North TD, Áine Kitt Brady.
The question is now whether FF will want him to run for the European seat not being contested by Seán Ó Neachtain, who has pulled out on health grounds. Sligo-Leitrim’s Jimmy Devins received a stay of execution last year after Cowen reappointed him despite his failure to toe the line on cancer services. This time, though, there was no reprieve, even though Devins, who was moved out of Health and Children then, has not fought since against the party’s diktat.
Cowen’s decision to leave out the former taoiseach’s brother Noel Ahern is interesting; though his name did feature on FF TDs’ shortlists the night before.
Cowen reappointed him last year, perhaps because he could do nothing else. But Bertie Ahern’s recent mutterings about Cowen’s performance have been transmitted upwards, and noted. Fianna Fáil’s ministerial representation in Dublin is now seriously under-strength, following Seámus Brennan’s death and Tom Kitt’s sacking.
The promotion of the popular and politically shrewd Mayo TD Dara Calleary was widely welcomed – and marks a definite blow to Beverley Flynn. Though, at 35, he is young in years, Calleary is a veteran in internal Fianna Fáil politics from the national executive and clearly no pushover.
Fianna Fáil TDs are becoming more fearful by the day about the June outing, not so much for the candidates, but for what it portends for them. The dangers have been clarified in just the last week, following the public controversy about a €6,000 increment due to TDs with more than 10 years’ service.
If anything, it is a classic example of the political dictum that the public’s eyes glaze over with talk of billions, but they become irate about thousands.
The saga about TDs’ and Ministers’ benefits will continue following the predictable news that ministerial pensions cannot be taken back from serving members until after the next election.
Despite much media ranting there was never any legal way that that could happen; but that leaves politicians under pressure to give them up voluntarily: a far worse prospect.
Mark Hennessy is a Political Correspondent with The Irish Times