MATT COOPER: IS IT MONEY?

WITH all due respect to Brian Hayes, the most noteworthy part of his radio exit interview yesterday (when the 49-year-old announced he is quitting politics next year to take up a lucrative job in the private sector) was his comment about Leo Varadkar’s intentions to quit politics when he reaches the age of 50.

We’ve heard such speculation about the Taoiseach’s political shelf-life before – and Varadkar’s denials of an early retirement being his intention – but Hayes attributed the comment directly to Varadkar.

Hayes may get a ticking off for this indiscretion, but in reality it matters little; who knows how Varadkar will feel about his work choices when he reaches real middle age?

He could return to medicine, although that seems unlikely given that he ditched his career in that profession pretty sharpish to turn to politics. He could go into business, as a main board director.

There isn’t a significant history of former Irish taoisigh taking up board positions at major corporations – Jack Lynch was an exception in joining the board of the Smurfit Group (as it was then), while Charles Haughey’s friend Dermot Desmond told him not to demean himself by taking such positions. But it is likely that Varadkar would be sought after and almost certain that he would like the intellectual challenge.

Wilderness

It is not hard to imagine him a decade hence as chairman of Ryanair, for example, especially as he once had responsibility for aviation when he held the transport ministry a few years ago. Or in a high-powered role for an international tech giant with interests in Ireland.

The problem is that anyone who makes such a jump will then have all previous actions examined to see if a favour is being returned. Such moves happen regularly in other countries, though.

However, it is impossible for anyone – including the Taoiseach himself – to predict what Varadkar might want do in nearly a decade’s time.

It is possible that by then he may have served all of those years as Taoiseach. Equally, he might lose power in the next election and spend the rest of his years up to the age of 50 trying to get it back.

Fail to do so and Fine Gael would most likely ditch him. Do so after years in the wilderness and it is unlikely he would simply surrender his regained crown to Simon Coveney or whoever else may have emerged in the party.

Varadkar’s possibilities – and Hayes’s decision to quit – do raise interesting questions, however, about the duration of anyone’s time in politics; the age at which they should be promoted, or relieved of their duties; their previous experiences in other jobs and the type of work they do after they leave politics (which is where possible conflicts of interest really emerge).

Hayes came to prominence in national politics at a young age, but despite his early promise, he never rose as fast or as far as Varadkar. The secondary school teacher was just 28 years old when he was elected first to the Dáil, in 1997, and his energy, cheery yet argumentative disposition and articulacy suggested an intelligence that is not entirely common around Leinster House.

He lost his seat in the Fine Gael electoral debacle of 2002 but gave a textbook example of how to use the Seanad as a base from which to restore his fortunes.

But in 2010 he shared a rush of blood to the head with Varadkar and Coveney when they and others failed to depose Enda Kenny as party leader, to be replaced by Richard Bruton.

Relaxed

When Kenny survived, the others, eventually, were restored to favour, but Hayes was never fully forgiven.

A junior ministry, in the still-important Department of Finance and working with Michael Noonan, was not nothing, but it was beneath his abilities, compared to some of the others who got selected for Kenny’s cabinets.

His departure to Brussels in 2014 had the look of an escape plan about it.

While he performed his duties as an elected MEP diligently and effectively, some of his recent appearances on television on Virgin Media One’s Tonight Show were so relaxed that, in retrospect, it should have suggested to me that Hayes was considering a life after politics.

Instead, journalists kept asking him if he would come back to stand for the Dáil again, as if he had no other options.

What Hayes has shown in his decision to quit is that he is not addicted to the buzz of politics – which is what many of his colleagues seem to get off on.

Some become consumed by the rituals of the game, of getting the votes by which they will be elected, of playing for favour with party bosses, of saying what they think the audience wants instead of what they know or think.

Instead, he has opted for the money, having done his public service and having been denied the chance of doing this at the higher level his talents probably deserved.

Fine Gael will worry that it might not find a strong enough candidate to win the seat in the European Parliament elections next May (as the Irish Daily Mail reports today, the party is considering approaching Lucinda Creighton to run – even though she was expelled from the parliamentary party in 2013), but that is Fine Gael’s concern, not ours. What should be of more concern to the public is that one of our more intelligent and committed politicians has left the scene – and that we don’t have enough of them to be able to afford to lose him easily.

Tradition

Or maybe we should be happy enough when somebody gives us 20 years and then decides to do something else.

There used to be a greater tradition of the best and brightest opting for careers in politics or the civil service, but the reality now is that many of those – and the numbers with third-level education have grown greatly – can now earn far more money elsewhere.

And in doing so, they can largely avoid the ever-increasing public scrutiny and abuse that politicians face in the social media age. If we don’t want to pay our politicians more, then maybe this is the trade-off we have to accept: that it will be a limited rather than lifelong career (for those who are able to continue to get elected).

For all the concern that is expressed about overpaid politicians, the expenses they receive and the pensions they’ll eventually draw, many could do better elsewhere in the private sector.

Leave them to it, you may say, but surely we have enough teachers in the Dáil who (partly) see politics as a way to becoming better paid? (And yes, I know Hayes was a secondary school teacher originally.)

Not everybody who joins the Dáil should be getting a major pay increase by doing so, but do we want the salaries and expenses on offer – while large to most people – to be so unattractive to those who get more elsewhere that they simply won’t do it?