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Team Harris: who will be the Cabinet and political adviser loyalists around the new Fine Gael leader?

Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney’s position central to options available to Fine Gael leader

Fine Gael leader Simon Harris speaking in Dublin on Monday evening. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

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Jack Horgan-Jones
Tue Mar 26 2024 - 06:00

As the dust settles on the uncontested selection of Simon Harris as Fine Gael leader and presumptive taoiseach, political minds are turning to what is likely to be much more contested ground – the battle for seats at Cabinet and within Harris’s team of advisers in government buildings.

In the first instance, the main question is how many spaces can be created around the Cabinet table: with one space to fill, the permutations arising from a second – or even third – space are Byzantine. Lateral moves between portfolios, elevations, demotions (not to mention sideways moves that could be deemed as moves up or down the food chain) are dominating discussions among the political class. Final decisions are not imminent, but the central role of Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney to matters is clear.

The former tánaiste was said to be in ebullient form at the Fine Gael selection convention where Harris was elevated on Sunday, wholeheartedly committing to running again in the next general election.

The reality is that while endless strategising is under way, the first task is assembling a kitchen cabinet of advisers for Harris, who is building up to the big job with a skeleton staff relative to the platoon of aides that will work in his office after April 9th.

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Joanne Lonergan, formerly Harris’s adviser in the Department of Health and a former assistant government press secretary, is being heavily linked with a return to Government Buildings.

While specific roles have not been identified, it is expected that Lonergan would hold parity with Harris’s current adviser Sarah Bardon, the former Irish Times political journalist who joined him in 2018.

Bardon and Lonergan would likely form the core of Harris’s adviser team, with the remaining faces and roles being built out from there.

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Max Murphy, Harris’s other adviser alongside Bardon, is likely to join him, while it is thought a heavyweight economics adviser is also being lined up. This would mark the return of a dedicated role filled in the Enda Kenny era by Andrew McDowell, who was not replaced when Leo Varadkar took over.

The expectation is that someone with an established profile in academia, business or finance would come on board in a similar manner to that employed by Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who is advised on a part-time basis by Alan Ahearne, professor in economics at the University of Galway.

This brief is being envisaged as a “fundamental part of the team”, according to one person involved in discussions. Stephen Kinsella, professor of economics at the University of Limerick, and John McHale, professor of economics at the University of Galway and a former chair of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, are names that have been discussed.

Harris, who has served under three taoisigh, all of whom had different approaches to staffing their back-room operations, is thought to still be finalising the exact structure of his team – whether advisers are handed specific policy areas or whether they will share oversight of policy in different departments.

The return of the economics advisory brief may not be matched with a similar position dedicated to Anglo-Irish or Northern Irish matters, as Varadkar had in his office with former Senator Jim D’Arcy.

However, there is an expectation that some of Varadkar’s team may be asked to remain on, either in temporary roles or as permanent fixtures – with a desire for continuity, especially at this late stage in the electoral cycle. Clare Mungovan is seen as one such person, but some who had been fixtures of Varadkar’s tenure, such as Government press secretary Nick Miller, are seen as less likely to remain.

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