Deal or no deal? Depends who you ask, really.
The history of Independents in, or supporting, government is a long one, but there is some distance from the days when Independents would openly declare the list of their constituency swag after sealing a deal with the government of the day.
The arrangements underpinning the support of the Regional Independent Group (RIG) and the Healy-Raes for the incoming Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition government seem to be in a political grey zone of constructive ambiguity.
Government Ministers were able to tell the media this week, with straight faces, there were no constituency deals to secure the support of the Independents. Yet, if you take the Independents’ contributions in the round, it is clear they know what they want and feel they have a pathway towards getting local and regional projects done.
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There will be structures for interaction between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Independents – a press adviser and a co-ordinator to liaise with the bigger party’s backroom teams and the media.
But there will also be a “formal structure” – in the words of Sligo-Leitrim Independent TD Marian Harkin, who will be a junior minister – for things such as the review of the multibillion-euro National Development Plan (NDP). There are no cast-iron guarantees, and Independent TD for Galway East Seán Canney, who will sit at the Cabinet table, also says there are no constituency deals.
But Canney said the structure being put in place to provide Independents with an input into the NDP and the HSE’s Capital Plan for investment in the country’s health service offers them access to “make a strong case” for projects in their constituency or region.
“If it cuts mustard and the case can be made, it should be included,” he said.
Precisely how the process would work “will be worked out”, he said.
“Because of the way we did the Programme for Government, we have already established a very clear partnership and respect. It’s a question of just going along with that.”
Another Independent TD backing the incoming coalition, Dublin Bay North TD Barry Heneghan, says it would be political suicide for an Independent to do a deal with the bigger parties and not walk away with something that recognises their policy goals – and their constituents.
Independents say they will have direct access to ministers – perhaps unsurprisingly, as some of them will be sitting around the Cabinet table.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael sources say there will be access, but there’s no special deal, and the status given to the Independents is similar to backbenchers or anyone supporting the Government.
So who are the Independent TDs supporting the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition and what are they expecting in return for their support?
1. Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, Longford-Westmeath – Minister of State
A veteran of the 2016-2020 coalition government, Moran lost his seat after serving as an Independent Alliance Minister of State at the Office of Public Works, where he had special responsibility for flood relief. Originally a Fianna Fáil councillor, he unsuccessfully challenged Mary O’Rourke for a place on its Dáil election ticket in 2007 before leaving the party.
He is seen as a “grafter” who would take a call day or night as a minister. Moran is clearly a political survivor and a fighter, now on the verge of taking ministerial office for a second time.
Described as “very loyal” to the government he served in, he lost his seat in 2020 but worked his way back on to the Westmeath County Council. Colleagues say he has had his fair share of luck in political life, benefiting from Fianna Fáil’s weakness in Athlone to build up a voter base and constituency organisation. The timing of the floods in Athlone in 2015, and the associated media profile he cultivated, helped his first Dáil tilt.
“If he fell in slurry, he’d come out wearing a suit,” says one source.
A taxi driver, Moran is said to canvas 20 to 30 people a day as he drives them. “That’s 800 people a month over 10 years,” remarks a political colleague enviously.
On the ground in Athlone, local sources say there is no shortage of projects that Moran should seek to deliver on – outer ring roads, minor injury clinics, as well as a share of the Government’s Just Transition purse to fund community amenities.
2. Noel Grealish, Galway West – Minister of State attending Cabinet (super junior)
First elected as a Progressive Democrat (PD) in 2002, he stepped into the seat being vacated by founding member Bobby Molloy. Grealish was re-elected as one of only two PDs in 2007. He briefly became the leader before the party was wound down. He was returned as an Independent TD at every election since then, drawing and building on support from the former PD network in Galway.
A workmanlike TD with a limited national profile, Grealish is said by colleagues to run a formidable constituency organisation. “A consummate constituency politician,” recalls one person. “He is the Healy-Raes of Galway.”
Grealish is seen by some as having mastered the art of criticising government while managing to claim some credit for its wins, maintaining cordial relations with senior government figures. Grealish works from 7am and is described by a source as “exceptionally likable” who “slowly and successfully cultivates support through engaging with people and solving problems”, says a source.
How that chimes with being a minister, with Cabinet responsibility thrown in, is one of the unknowns of his next chapter in politics.
Grealish has courted controversy – most notably in 2019 when his comments in the Dáil about remittances being sent from Ireland to Nigeria created a firestorm of controversy. Paschal Donohoe, then minister for finance, wrote to him criticising the “apparent ethnic basis” of his remarks.
He was caught up in the infamous Golfgate scandal, becoming the only serving Oireachtas member to face court over the golf society dinner held in Clifden in 2020 during Covid pandemic restrictions. The charges against him and three others were ultimately dismissed by a District Court judge.
3. Gillian Toole, Meath East
A pharmacist and former Fine Gael councillor, Toole quit the party in 2019 after five years on the council, running as an Independent in Ratoath. After she left, there was a controversy after a senior Fine Gael member in the constituency was alleged to have used a racial slur while criticising her at a party meeting, which led to an internal investigation.
Toole is said to be “very popular” locally. Political sources in her constituency say she has built a niche out of strongly criticising the government. She was described by one as a “commentator politician, pointing out everything that’s wrong”. She responds that she is “solution focused”.
“I can be on the sideline and complain or get involved and contribute,” she said.
Toole will undoubtedly feel the pressure from the wider public over unpopular government decisions, but will nonetheless be expected to deliver her vote. “She’ll find that difficult,” says one Meath East veteran. Toole says she will look to discuss any issues raised and she “wasn’t shy” of feedback or solutions when in Fine Gael.
One source suggested she might find public pressure over unpopular government decisions difficult.
Asked about any projects she expects to be delivered for her constituency, Toole says there are “no specifics per se until the National Development Plan and HSE Capital Plan stage”. She is hoping for improved road and pedestrian infrastructure in Meath towns such as Dunboyne, Dunshaughlin and Ratoath. She also wants community-heating schemes from data centres and increased resources for special education.
“No one has specific project commitments,” she said, but added that she will be “in nagging mode”.
4. Michael Lowry, Tipperary North
There have been denials from the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that Michael Lowry – whose career has been marked by controversy – would be coalition kingmaker. But there is no doubting the Tipperary North TD’s significant role in the Independent TDs becoming involved in the incoming government.
Lowry led the talks between the RIG and the two big parties, with four of their number securing ministerial posts as part of the deal struck to support the next government.
One source among the Independents described him as an “exceptional negotiator” who “understands the system, how things work and leaves no stone unturned”.
His prominent role in the creation of the next government is a far cry from 2011 and the publication of the second report of the Moriarty tribunal and its adverse findings against him. It led to the Dáil passing a motion at the time without a vote calling for him to resign as a TD.
The tribunal investigated the 1995 awarding of the State’s second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone, businessman Denis O’Brien’s company while Lowry was a Fine Gael minister for communications. It concluded that Lowry “secured the winning” of the mobile phone licence for Esat Digifone. It also found that Lowry was given money by O’Brien, with the payments “demonstrably referable” to his winning of the licence. Lowry and O’Brien have repeatedly disputed the findings.
First elected as a councillor in 1979, Lowry won his Dáil seat in 1987. He has kept it at every election since. Resigning as a Fine Gael minister in 1996, Lowry became an Independent and went on to top the poll in the North Tipperary constituency in the 1997 general election.
The 71-year old father-of-three has built up a considerable constituency operation including a “Team Lowry” group of five councillors in Tipperary with his son Michéal Lowry among their number.
He has repeatedly enjoyed huge support from the electorate in Tipperary, even after the publication of the Moriarty report – something incoming Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Micheál Martin pointed to as he defended the government-formation talks with Lowry in recent weeks.
Lowry often backed previous governments in Dáil votes outside of a formal arrangement, and he indicated immediately after November’s election that he would be open to supporting a new coalition.
At the time he said he was “not interested in self-preferment – I’m interested in being in a position where I can have access to deliver on constituency issues”.
5. Marian Harkin, Sligo-Leitrim – Minister of State
In the immediate aftermath of the general election, Marian Harkin made no secret of her intention to enter government talks, saying it was “the reason that I ran in the first place”.
She flagged her interest in a ministerial role during the campaign, saying she “would love the portfolio of regional and rural development”.
The 71-year-old is now set to become a Minister of State at the Department of Higher Education instead – a role that comes after more than two decades in politics as a TD and MEP.
One observer said they had seen her become a “very effective and experienced” politician who also has “an air of decency about her”.
From Ballintogher, Co Sligo, she became active in politics when living in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, where her late husband ran a business. A former teacher, she contested the 1999 European election but lost out on a seat to Dana Rosemary Scallon.
Harkin was first elected to the Dáil in 2002 and was elected to the European Parliament three times from 2004 onwards. During her time in Europe she was involved in developing legislation on leave from work for family carers and regulations requiring heavy-goods vehicles to have blind-spot mirrors.
Harkin made her name as a campaigner for regional development. She returned to the Dáil in 2020, retaining the seat last November, and is now preparing to enter government for the first time.
Among the projects she is hoping to progress for her Sligo-Leitrim constituency, and the wider region, is the upgrade of the N17 road, a bypass for Carrick-on-Shannon and a new surgical hub for Sligo University Hospital.
She has “no cast-iron” guarantees on such projects, she says, “but it’s my job to lobby and to push for them – and that’s what I will do”.
6. Barry Heneghan, Dublin Bay North
On the first day of the general election count, Heneghan looked to be out of the running, with most predicting a second seat would go to Fianna Fáil.
Over pints with his team in The Sheds pub in Clontarf, he was one of the few among them who thought he was still in with a shot and so it proved. A transfer magnet, building on a strong canvassing game and energetic online presence, he dramatically took a seat.
The Clontarf native put himself forward for the local elections last June, supported by former Independent Alliance minister Finian McGrath. Heneghan won a council seat and was put forward for the general election.
As a politician with a strong online presence, Heneghan has already seen some backlash over his decision to throw his vote behind the Government. He met this head on, posting on Instagram addressing the criticism.
He later said he deleted some “nasty comments” on the post, while engaging with every other person posting comments and offering to meet them. Amid criticism of Lowry’s role in negotiating for the RIG, Heneghan suggested on television this week the Moriarty tribunal had been a “waste of taxpayers’ money”.
In the general election, Heneghan took up McGrath’s focus on disabilities and made extra facilities for Beaumont Hospital on the northside of Dublin a core goal. He has not been shy about claiming parts of the Programme for Government as reflecting his input. When it comes to rewards for his constituency, he says it would be “absolute political suicide to make a deal without benefiting my constituents but also the key issues I ran on”.
“There is no written agreement (for Beaumont Hospital),” he says.
However, he said there is an agreement that when the HSE Capital Plan is being formulated, Independent TDs can have an input.
“Part of the deal,” he says, “is we have a clear line of communication with departments and access to deliver the projects”.
7. Seán Canney, Galway East – Minister of State attending Cabinet
Galway East TD Seán Canney was described by one politician who worked with him previously as “decent”, “effective” and “shrewd”.
It is perhaps no surprise then that he will be the RIG’s representative at the weekly pre-cabinet meeting of coalition leaders. It was an arrangement that worked well for the last coalition government involving Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, allowing the leaders to thrash out difficult issues before they went to the wider cabinet.
Canney says the involvement of the Independents in the meetings leading to the incoming coalition “demonstrates we’re not just attached to government – we’re actually a partner”.
He is expected to land a super-junior ministerial role at the Department of Transport that brings a seat at cabinet.
A quantity surveyor by trade, Canney has decades of experience in the building industry. He also worked as a lecturer in construction economics and quantity surveying at Atlantic Technological University.
First elected to the Dáil in 2016, he had two stints as a then-Independent Alliance junior minister in the Fine Gael-led minority government that lasted until 2020. The first was as Minister of State for the Office of Public Works with much of his focus on progressing Ireland’s flood-relief schemes. The second role was as Minister of State for Community Development.
Re-elected in 2020 he was among Independent TDs that occasionally bolstered this government’s majority in crunch Dáil votes.
Projects he wants to see progressed during the life of this new government include the outer ring road for Galway City, improved hospital infrastructure in the city and the development of the Western Rail Corridor.
He says they are “all things that have a huge impact regionally” and hopes he can use his participation in government to progress or expedite such projects.
8. Michael Healy-Rae, Kerry
Michael Healy-Rae told listeners of Radio Kerry he and his brother Danny had gone to Dublin and “put their cards on the table” in the government-formation talks. They highlighted concerns about projects in Kerry that had been “stalled” which they now expected to see “progressed”.
Once they did a deal, he said, they would stick with it “through thick and thin”.
They would be following their late father, Independent TD Jackie Healy-Rae, who backed governments led by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern in return for multimillion euro investments in Kerry.
After years spent as a frequent critic of successive governments, Michael Healy-Rae (57) will now sit on the government benches with a junior ministry at the Department of Agriculture to boot.
He was first elected to Kerry County Council in 1999 and subsequently won the Dáil seat vacated by his father Jackie who retired as a TD in 2011.
Married to Eileen, the father-of-five is a postmaster and service-station owner in Kilgarvan. He is also a plant hire contractor and farmer, and has frequently emerged as the biggest landlord in the Dáil in the annual declarations of TD interests.
He was quick to signal his interest in government after the election saying: “Our phones are turned on” and the brothers’ priorities were: “Kerry, Kerry and Kerry – be that roads, infrastructure, housing, health, fishing, farming”.
In recent days he has been relatively circumspect about which specific constituency projects he would push for, though he has mentioned funding for roads and restarting some projects that had stalled.
He has pledged that people in Kerry will see “clear benefits to having Healy-Raes in government”.
9. Danny Healy-Rae, Kerry
Perhaps Danny Healy-Rae’s best-known Dáil contribution came not long after he was first elected as a TD in 2016 when he said he did not agree with all the talk about climate change as “God above is in charge of the weather and we here can’t do anything about it.”
Like his brother, he was a strident critic of Green Party policies in the last government amid concern over their impact on rural Ireland. However, he is now signing up to support a government that will seek to continue climate-action measures to meet Ireland’s emissions targets, and carbon tax remains on a trajectory of yearly increases.
He was asked on Radio Kerry this week if his opposition to the tax has fallen away with his support for the incoming government.
“Everyone knows my stance on climate change,” he replied, but added: “I do realise that in government you have to maybe go against some of your own ideals in order to get more.”
One investment he hopes to land for Kerry from participating in government is “proper funding” to tackle traffic congestion in Killarney where he has highlighted the need for a road to bypass the town.
Healy-Rae and his wife Eileen run the Healy-Rae pub in Kilgarvan village. Two of their six children, Johnny and Maura, are Kerry county councillors, as is their cousin Jackie jnr, Michael’s son.
The Healy-Rae brothers have reputations as hardworking constituency TDs that never fail to answer the phone or return calls.
Between them they have built on the legacy of their father and now have something of an electoral empire in the Kingdom.
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