As a victim in a past life of the reshuffle knife, my advice to the whingers: Keep your powder dry!
RESHUFFLES. While they inevitably cause great speculation and discussion amongst politicians and political commentators, by and large, the general public do not get particularly excited about the shenanigans involved.
And they are definitely not impressed by some of the disappointed venting their frustrations in public. Last week, I heard a lot of remarks from people, such as ‘they are like spoiled children’, referring to some TDs taking to the airwaves and social media to express their anger as to why they were overlooked or demoted.
Always, in reshuffles, people are disappointed in that they have been overlooked but this time there seems to have been much more discontent in the Fine Fáil ranks. Maybe it’s because there has been a pentup anticipation within the party given that it has been in opposition for nearly a decade.
As a veteran of many reshuffles, my advice to those who were disappointed on this occasion is to bite their tongue and just knuckle down to look after their constituency. As the saying goes: ‘It’s a long road that has no turning.’
Last week, I heard a commentator say they hadn’t ever before experienced such upheaval regarding a reshuffle. Obviously, they weren’t around in the Haughey/Reynolds era, as I was.
Crossfire
In 1991, Charlie Haughey sacked five ministers, including Albert Reynolds, from his cabinet. The same day he had to nominate replacements. I made the cut. In fact, within the space of six hours, Haughey appointed me to two different positions. Firstly, I was called over to his office and he offered me European and Womens’ Affairs. But, later that night, there was high drama in Leinster House.
James McDaid, who had been nominated as the new minister for Defence, had to withdraw his nomination because a photograph emerged of him previously attending a funeral of a well-known IRA man in Donegal. Haughey then nominated someone else to Defence and I was called back in by him to be offered the consequent vacancy, government chief whip.
But the party, over that period,continued to tear itself apart. And, as chief whip, I knew it better than most. Just over three months later, Reynolds replaced Haughey as taoiseach. Upon taking up office, Reynolds sacked eight senior and eight junior ministers, including yours truly, in a political bloodbath known as the ‘Night of the Long Knives’.
Indeed, such was the massacre that Reynolds actually sacked me in the Dáil Chamber, just before I handed the result of the vote for his election to the ceann comhairle.
Personally, I was devastated. I knew that I had been unlucky to be caught in the crossfire between older factions within the party. For a week or two, internally, I was raging, but, thanks to the good advice of close family members, I said nothing publicly and decided to just get on with looking after my constituency interests.
However, as often happens in politics, the political shafting of fellow colleagues came back to haunt Reynolds. When his government subsequently got into trouble regarding the paedophile Brendan Smyth, he prematurely resigned as taoiseach, partly because he correctly felt that he couldn’t rely on the support of all of his parliamentary party. Indeed, more crucially for Reynolds, a few years later, when he put his name forward as the FF nominee for the presidency, he was minus those 16 votes out of about 100 in the FF parliamentary party, before he started his, ultimately, unsuccessful campaign.
Micheál Martin seems not to be too worried about the ripples he caused by his ministerial choices. No doubt, things will settle down, as they always do. But, take my word, there will be consequences down the line. Being a keen observer of Irish political history, Martin is, no doubt, aware of how botched reshuffles have damaged party leaders. It may be that he doesn’t particularly care, knowing that his time is short.
Under the rotating Taoiseach arrangement agreed by this Government, Martin has to step down as Taoiseach in late 2022, when he has to hand over to whoever is Fine Gael leader, at that time. Most are now speculating that he will, also at that time, decide to vacate the FF leadership position. Either that, or he will be pushed.
Battle
One thing is certain after last week’s events. The race for his successor is truly up and running. For the last decade or so there has been no personality in FF who stood a chance of challenging Martin. But, those in FF who have long disagreed with Martin’s leadership, now have a focus: Jim O’Callaghan.
By declining a junior minister position, he has undoubtedly put down a marker. Question is, will others now step forward to do battle with him? Political history would suggest so. While Taoiseach Martin will proceed to try to make his mark in the short time available to him, at the same time, in the FF undergrowth, there will undoubtedly be a battle going on to replace him.
Jim O’Callaghan, by opting out of ministerial preferment, and especially by his pitch to ‘Middle Ireland’, has thrown in the ball in the game to succeed Micheál Martin.
We can expect much intrigue within the FF party, over the next year or so. The ‘Boys are (truly) back in Town’.