Knives out: Harris must be ruthless in carving cabinet

One of Simon Harris’s first duties as a TD was to meet the Queen. On her visit to Ireland in May 2011, Queen Elizabeth arrived at Dublin’s Convention Centre for a special event and a few TDs were lucky enough to meet her. I was standing in a small group of three deputies with Harris (the other being coincidentally Micheál Martin) when she approached.

I was at my self-important worst — a veteran of political events, affecting nonchalance awaiting her arrival. Simon, a baby-faced 24-year-old greenhorn, looked eager, but unfazed.

As her majesty approached our group, I was first in line for a few words with her. Unfortunately, the Queen spotted Simon.

She looked a little taken aback, maybe not as tickled pink as when she met fishmonger Pat O’Connell at the English Market in Cork — but her eyes lit up. She made a beeline for him. I was nonplussed, wondering if the precocious little upstart somehow knew her.

I can remember her exact words: “And what are you doing here? What do you do?” She evidently thought he was one of the TDs’ children.

He replied that he was a member of parliament for Wicklow.

She was composed. “Oh, they start you very young here,” she remarked.

The Queen and Simon had an animated conversation and she moved on. I never got to talk to her. I have held a grudge against Simon ever since, and my enthusiasm for the British monarchy waned on the spot.

A few weeks earlier, Simon — on his first day in the Dáil — had proposed Enda Kenny for Taoiseach. He was chosen to do the honours by Fine Gael to show off the party’s young prodigy.

I went on to serve with him on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where he outshone most of his Fine Gael colleagues with his workload and energy. He was soon plucked off Dáil committee duties to be propelled into a minister of state office at the ripe old age of 27.

We served together again in Enda Kenny’s last — and then in Leo’s first — cabinet, when he was health minister. He was not one of the heavyweights at a table dominated by bigger beasts — like Kenny himself, Michael Noonan, Paschal Donohoe, Simon Coveney, Frances Fitzgerald, and Leo Varadkar. He bided his time, but somehow ducked much of the flak forever flying towards the holder of the health portfolio, immortally known as “Angola”.

Few doubted his determination to be taoiseach one day. He warned fellow pupils of his ambition when he was at St David’s Secondary School in Greystones. He worked for former tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald and topped the poll in the Wicklow County Council elections of 2009, after reputedly giving years of his own time to pounding the pavements. He was relentless.

Harris made a rare blunder when he backed Simon Coveney in the 2017 leadership battle against Varadkar. He was one of a small minority of Fine Gael TDs in Coveney’s camp.

Afterwards, he was lucky. Some colleagues felt he would be dropped by Varadkar — but he survived, despite a stressed, arms-length relationship with the now exiting Taoiseach.

Nevertheless, Varadkar denied Harris any of the more powerful ministries in 2020 when he formed the current Coalition. Knowing Simon’s leadership ambitions, Leo thought it prudent to keep him a prisoner inside the camp rather than a loose cannon outside it. Unwilling to give Harris an influential role, he preferred to entrust the Department of Justice to a disappointing newcomer — but Leo loyalist — Helen McEntee.

Simon was sidelined, offered the least challenging ministry of all 15 — Further and Higher Education.

The less-demanding appointment gave Harris time. Plenty of it. He used it cannily. Over the last four years he has been on the chicken and chips circuit. Where Paschal Donohoe has rightly been burning pre-budget midnight oil, travelling overseas, arguing the toss with economists, industrialists and trades unions, Harris has been attending to the needs of the three constituencies which elect the leader, namely councillors (10pc), party members (25pc) and TDs (65pc).

The favours were done. The members loved him because they met him, saw him, shook his hand; he remembered their names. The councillors loved him because he travelled to their local events. The TDs and senators loved him because he listened.

His campaign has been in operation for four years. Not a shot needed to be fired.

This week, Simon’s problems start.

He inherits a party in shambolic shape. The polls are bad. The electorate sees Fine Gael as tired, in power for far too long. The same old faces in all key positions. Except his.

Harris’s cabinet choices will be key. If — like Varadkar when inheriting

Enda Kenny’s ministers — he is scared of demoting anyone, he will be toast. He has an opportunity to introduce new faces, and put some who have underperformed out to grass.

He will have the Varadkar vacancy, but needs more. McEntee was in Leo’s team as she was his political protegee. Her time as justice minister has been unhappy. Her walkabout in Dublin’s north inner city — flanked by members of the gardaí as she proclaimed the streets safe — looks idiotic after the Dublin riots. Her hate speech bill has caused convulsions. Her time in politics was far too short to merit such a sensitive ministry.

Coveney has served Fine Gael well in several cabinet posts. His star has faded since Martin took over from him at Foreign Affairs. He was disappointed to lose out to Martin, but should now write to the taoiseach-in-waiting asking not to be considered for a post.

If he doesn’t, Harris must show his mettle by showing that nobody — whether from a loyal Fine Gael family or not — has a right to a place in his cabinet. No doubt Coveney will be available to apply for a key ambassadorship when one becomes available.

But two people are indispensable. Donohoe, above anyone, is responsible for the good health of the Irish economy. The likelihood that Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath will take the European Commissioner’s job this year makes it imperative Paschal stays on. And Heather Humphreys speaks forcefully for rural Ireland.

There is less talent waiting in the wings to fill the vacancies, since 12 party TDs have already announced their intention to retire.

Perhaps Harris can persuade some of them, such as Kerry’s Brendan Griffin (inexplicably discarded by Varadkar) or Wexford’s Paul Kehoe to change their minds? If not, he could do worse than promote Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Peter Burke, Kieran O’Donnell, or Alan Dillon.

He must resist the temptation to promote those ministers of state, friends maybe, who started the stampede on to the media last Thursday to ensure his uncontested victory.

His priority must be a break with the past, fresh faces and new ideas. He should not countenance a Dáil election before Christmas and should distance his new government from the disastrous referendums. That was Leo’s baby.

The baby-faced boy who met the Queen in 2011 must be utterly ruthless. If he cannot, he will realise he should have been more careful in what he wished for.

Harris’s cabinet choices will be key. If he is scared of demoting anyone he will be toast. He must introduce new faces — and put some old ones out to grass