Simon may go down in history as Taoiseach with the shortest term
HAVE we ever had a Taoiseach arrive with less fanfare than Simon ‘What-his-face?” Harris – and will the only thing he’ll ever be remembered for is for being our shortest-ever serving chief?
That’s about the two most interesting things about the man who makes Simon Coveney look like a ball of fire, firstly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot about him that’s interesting and secondly, how he may have the life-span of a pot of yoghurt.
Harris may have ambition and bags of it but what else has he shown us?
This is the lifelong politician, councillor at 22, TD at 24, whose stint as Health Minister is best remembered for generating international headlines, plus some confusion and a fair bit of laughter, by declaring; “Remember this is coronavirus Covid-19, that means there have been 18 other coronaviruses and I don’t think they have successfully found a vaccine for any.”
Luckily for Ireland and the world, the “other 18 coronaviruses” turned out to be more of a bug in Simon’s brain.
In fairness, Simon was made Health Minister shortly after his 29th birthday, so it could have been worse, he could have part-exchanged the
Mater Hospital for a tricked-out Mitsubishi Evo. It’s also not his fault he has the look and air of small-town tax accountant who stays away from pubs at the weekend because “M a m m y says they do be fierce loud”. Somewhere Charlie Haughey is having a good old laugh at what’s become of the men who go for his old job.
Say what you like about Charlie but at least the old devil had a bit of a lust for life, he liked his horses, his women, his yachts and his …er… “political donations from wealthy well-wishers”.
You get the feeling the first order of business from Taoiseach Simon Harris will be to cancel Netflix for the entire country and block anybody going to Cheltenham next year because: “Ye should all be putting that money into the Credit Union.”
There’s been a lot of talk about his youth and ordinary background, but when you’ve basically dropped out of college to go straight into fulltime politics, start earning a TDS salary at 24 and a full Minister’s paycheck at 29, how much of “ordinary life” can you have seen?
And yes, we elect TDS and they choose a Taoiseach, but after Martin and Varadkar deciding to share the job and now Harris being installed by his party, isn’t it about time for a fresh mandate from the actual voters?
Simon may not want to start picking out new curtains for his new office – he may not be around long enough to get the proper use out of them.