Budget is in the bag, next stop a Cabinet reshuffle
SO, now that the Budget show is done, and we have our €11billion, the next great soap-opera is the Cabinet reshuffle. It is, of course, early days yet. But when it comes to what will be an equally long running saga, the Budget gives some indication as to who’ll stick and who will fall on the Cabinet merry-go-round.
With an €11billion Budget there should, of course, only be winners. However, in politics even with an economic forcefield like this there are losers.
So, who from all of last week’s triumphants are the likely winners and losers in the soon to come Leo and Micheál shuffle?
DETACHED FROM THE FRAY … THE TROIKA
When it comes to the three leaders – the Troika of temerity – Leo and Eamon are the big winners.
Leo may not have got his 30% tax rate, but he is going to be the next Taoiseach, and he can spend his first year talking about the 30% tax rate he will deliver before Michael McGrath foils him.
Eamon Ryan will also continue to do a similar amount of talking to Leo. Hopefully he will match him in the achievement stakes too. Then we will all feel better.
The loser in all this is Micheál. No matter what fine Ministry is secured there will be no disguising the fact that a Tánaiste is never the equal of a Taoiseach.
Leo found that out the hard way and is only in recovery now.
WINNERS IN WAITING
Michael McGrath’s ‘careful now’ analysis did little to accelerate the state of Budget Day excitement.
But he still shone in the reflected glory of announcing the billions and billions of Heather bonuses and double payments and one-off payments. It even allowed him to claim Heather’s Budget was a FF Budget.
By the time Michael finished there was more of an opposition in the FF benches behind Micheál Martin than the opposition in front of them. He’s a definite now for Finance.
Meanwhile, Simon Harris is getting ready for big boy school.
Sometimes it just takes one big coup d’etat to transform a Budget package.
In the case of Simon, the reduction in student fees is straight from the Heather Humphreys’ fiscal playbook of getting cash out fast.
Better still, Simon achieved the rare political feat of under-promising and over-delivering.
Simon is a little peripheral at the moment. If Micheal fancies the dreamy spires of Higher Education rather than the Asphodel Gardens of Foreign Affairs, depending on where Heather goes, Simon will be in line for something nice. He might even secure the big boy status of Enterprise and Employment rather than Social Protection. Then there’s Stephene Donnelly, the accidental winner. Stephen was looking a little wan in the Budgetary negotiations. In a rare moment of unity Fine Gael had joined Fianna Fáil in briefing against him and even Michael McGrath indulged in the fiscal equivalent of hitting the dog on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. This scenario means that promotion for Stephen is actually survival. Micheál may not have given his minister the guaranteed seal of approval that Darragh O’Brien has got but few can aspire to that level of love.
But after the 430,000 free GP care places Stephen is no longer limping at the back of the herd.
Heather Humphreys is now the new Charlie McCreevy.
Any talk of Heather being retired by the Dublin 4 Posh Boys has disappeared.
The new chat is of Heather doing an Angela Merkel-style job on Public Expenditure.
It might be more accurate to look closer to home in analysing Heather’s rare feat, of a Fine Gael minister of delivering an FF-style Budget.
The political ghost of Charlie McCreevy will have been watching admiringly as Heather lashed out the one-offs, the doubles and the trebles.
Could she do a similar job in Public Expenditure?
SAFE BUT NOT SECURE.
While you can be safe in the great Cabinet game, you are never secure.
Those who should be safe but not quite secure are: Roderic O’Gorman – Ministers who are about to be sacked don’t get record breaking Budgetary childcare announcements
Darragh O’Brien – Picked out this week as the leader’s choice for Housing. Not that anyone else is queuing up for it. Still, a vote of confidence from the Chairman of the Board is always good… isn’t it?
Norma Foley – Under Norma, the school buses will always run on time. Picked out by the leader for praise at the Ard Fheis and was the lukewarm warm-up speaker. Even got a cheer for: ‘the announcement this week of free schoolbooks for primary schools.’ Norma is a stayer not a transient.
Helen McEntee – Leo’s protegée is as unsackable as she is inscrutable.
Catherine Martin – The Dublin South Sphinx-like variant of Helen McEntee is in for the duration too… whether that be 2023, 2024 or 2025.
BUT THERE ALWAYS HAVE TO BE LOSERS
Where there is success, tragedy is also always just around the corner. And despite the €11bn boomer some will be sleeping uneasily. Those in the relegation zone are:
Paschal the Parsimonious. Paschal may be in a bit of trouble with his leader, the dubious Leo.
For months Leo dominated the political skyline with the great tax reform plan.
Then on Budget day Leo’s 30% tax band was marked absent without leave:
There were earnest claims from Parsimonious Paschal that when it came to the 30% fiscal genie, like Paddington Bear, the Department would be having a hard stare at it next year.
But the innate dolefulness of a Paschal is also becoming a problem
This was the boomiest Budget since the Bertie era.
Paschal, a politician who makes steady as you go sound exciting, delivered it with all the bounce and brio of a man about to be shot at dawn. Despite the scale of the giveaway, the first round of applause only occurred 35 minutes into Paschal’s Budget speech.
And by the time Parsimonious Paschal finished his exposition of the ‘record number of people at work, with a Budget surplus’, it had turned into a snooze fest.
Charlie McConalogue, the accidental victim.
He was among the €11billion though it wasn’t exactly a stellar Budget. Ultimately no harm was done though.
Jack Chambers has been an awfully good boy ... and he is hungry.
Barry Cowen has been not so good but ...
And will Dara Calleary be happy as a permanent Junior Ministerial Mexican sharecropper
Simon Coveney and the friendship of a Leo.
The dread words for Simon will surely be ‘Micheál wants Foreign Affairs.’ If he does, what is Leo to do? Could he let down his old friend? He could – in a semi heartbeat.
The problem for Simon Coveney is that Budgets are rarely a place for foreign affairs ministers to shine.
Surely though there should be one eye-catching initiative in his two ministries. Sadly, despite much stolid and staid work there wasn’t. He’s just muddling along.
And even for a Cork merchant Prince, just muddling along is a dangerous space to be.