GIRL POWER
In the secret court of Simon Harris, women have been chosen to wield that all-important invisible authority
WELL, that Fine Gael ‘Morning Time in America’ mood didn’t last all that long.
Instead, the mood after the survival of the great Fine Gael Doges and Dynasts – Paschal Donohoe and Helen McEntee – and the Patrick O’Donovan surprise, was summarised by one Fine Gael TD as being like the ‘meet the new boss: same as the old boss’ line in The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Taoisigh do tend to bask in the delights of absolute power during the few hours before they appoint their cabinets, and after that, the rest is an inexorable falling back into the ranks.
In the case of the cloudy new dawn of the Taoiseach, within his party few were contending that Mr Harris had exercised his ‘powers’ to the maximum.
Instead, one cruel source observed of the reshuffle: ‘Frances told him to appoint Helen, Paschal told him he was staying, Heather told him to appoint Patrick and Simon appointed the rest.’
Mr Harris’s supporters argue that consensual politicians are longer-term stayers, but the level of caution left some nostalgic for the more imperious leadership styles of a Charlie Haughey or an Albert Reynolds.
In the case of the former, this was epitomised by the tale of some bovine senator who was called into Haughey’s office for a rollocking.
As always with Haughey, the office was lavishly furnished, with a wood-panelled wall that hid the door so well the flustered senator could not find his way out.
Haughey, on noticing his presence minutes later, asked: ‘Why are you still f***ing here?’ When the terrified senator whimpered that he couldn’t find the door, the taoiseach icily observed: ‘Well there’s a f***ing window over there. If you can’t find the f***ing door jump out of that.’
There are, on the evidence, unlikely to be too many public drive-by shootings in the new court of Simon Harris.
In truth, despite the skittish Leinster House mood, Cabinet reshuffles are a drama that is of interest to few beyond the gilded walls of the exclusive Dáil club.
What is of greater interest though, when it comes to how we may be governed, is who were the influencers in the reshuffle.
In that regard the uncertain fracas provides us with further confirmation of the old Church doctrine of there being two types of power, visible and invisible, and that invisible power can often be far more effective.
Those who have visible power are like kings with their armies, but the Church had the invisible power of condemning kings to eternal damnation.
Visible power in modern politics is of course held by the Cabinet but a leader always has a private or kitchen court and the reshuffle showed the power of the latter.
The invisible court, especially Frances Fitzgerald, are believed to have been particularly influential in saving Helen McEntee from being moved from the Department of Justice.
Connoisseurs of Ms Fitzgerald are surprised by the idea that she would spend so much political capital on saving Ms McEntee.
But there is a Presidential election coming. Meath and the old Fine Gael dynasties will be very important should Frances wish to secure a nomination… in the interests of the party, of course.
Separately, much of the ‘credit’ for the entertaining spectacle of Patrick O’Donovan being chosen to spearhead Ireland’s Higher Education system is being allocated to Heather Humphreys.
Like Paul Kehoe, Patrick, whose main achievement in the OPW was the repair of an old bandstand in St Stephen’s Green, is a Heather ‘breakfast club’ protégé.
One source observed: ‘This has less to do with Patrick’s talents and more to do with a display of Heather’s power.
‘Coveney looked after none of his supporters. Heather is proving that she has clout.’
When it comes to the secret court of Mr Harris one of its more intriguing features is the role and importance of women.
Apart from his official Queen Mums Heather and Frances within the Taoiseach’s circle of advisers, the selections of former journalists Sarah Bardon and Ciara Phelan, and of the longterm Fine Gael apparatchiks Joanne Lonergan, Majella Fitzpatrick and Clare Mungovan, has more than broken the glass ceiling when it comes to the number of women and the role and influence they will hold.
Mr Harris’s decision to be a Taoiseach ‘Among Women’ – for we have not even mentioned the new role of Kate O’Connell as a political linebacker – has sparked hopes within a certain wing of Fine Gael that we may have the first taoiseach since Bertie Ahern who is instinctively empathetic towards women and who doesn’t regard the complex business of understanding women to be a form of political purgatory. This may be of some political importance, for a key factor in the growing independent political tide lapping around the new king’s feet is the belief that we live in an ‘Unfinished Republic’ for women. This is not a country where women feel safe or valued, especially in the caring professions or as homemakers.
Obviously many men who take these roles (and without wishing to upset Sinn Féin and the National Women’s Council of Ireland) do not feel valued either.
But caring is a job done predominantly by women, be it at home or in the workplace, and it is honoured more in the breach than in reality.
It is also an unfinished Republic when it comes to equality for women in politics. Women look at the political system and increasingly perceive something alien which, though mostly benevolent in its aspirations, has stopped listening to and is incapable of understanding the nurturing needs of the people.
A great tide of anger has been building among women over the unfinished nature of the Republic when it comes to their needs and issues.
For now, they see strong Independent women like Carol Nolan and Verona Murphy as representing new role models for a better way of conducting politics.
They especially empathise with the attempt by the dynastic Doges of Fine Gael to elbow Verona Murphy off the political stage [literally] before she even began, and the inability of Sinn Féin to deal with the freethinking independence of Ms Nolan.
Increasingly they note that, as with so many other things, while men have talked the talk for 10 decades about respecting and valuing women, more often than not it takes a woman to finish a job.
So far the Civil War parties have displayed a tin ear and a Nelsonian eye when it comes to what they delicately describe as ‘female issues’.
Mr Harris’s appointments are an interesting indicator of possible changes in that attitude – so long as, having appointed and promoted all those women, he actually listens to them.
Apparently they like that.
Men talk the talk... but it takes a woman to finish the job