Without Michael Noonan, the coalition would collapse like a cheap deckchair

A71-YEAR-OLD bald man with a well-lunched midriff, diabetes and recovering from cancer is more trusted and respected than any other minister in Government and, therefore, its most indispensable member. That’s Michael Noonan, the rock on which this Government is built: if he stepped away from the Department of Finance, the coalition would collapse like a cheap deckchair.

There will be ritual farewells to James Reilly, an au revoir to Phil Hogan and there was a ‘don’t ring us, we’ll ring you’ to the unlamented Alan Shatter.

On the other side of the coalition, they will say goodbye to Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and Ruairi Quinn.

Reshuffles in coalition can turn into a faction fight, with young bloods tearing at old hands, leaving the Government feeble and vulnerable. But the chairs at the Cabinet table will be rearranged before the summer break in July.

Yet it doesn’t really matter that much who becomes the next leader of the Labour Party or whatever Fine Gael casualties tumble or ascend in the reshuffle.

If Noonan is not there, the Government is doomed.

This is because he is more respected and trusted by Irish voters than any other minister, including the Taoiseach.

His public relations are a masterclass in minimalism: public utterances are rare and he makes even fewer public appearances, so when he does speak, people listen.

He treated the appearance of a cancerous tumour on his shoulder as a nuisance that requires occasional paracetamol and he shrugged off the idea of taking time away from his desk. The problem is that even if he were suffering agonies and the job was killing him, nobody could mask it better than Noonan.

He is one of the good guys; we should all be rooting for him.

THE candidates for the Labour leadership are running as if they were members of an opposition party seeking to replace an uncaring, out-of-touch govern-

ment. They demand explanations for decisions taken in a cabinet where both candidates continue to serve as ministers.

Excuse me, but is that not breathtaking hypocrisy tarted up as socialist concern?

Alex White is Minister for State in the Department of Health with responsibility for primary care and he has been pushing free GP care for children under six – at a time when seven-year-olds with Down Syndrome were losing their medical cards.

It was a disastrous decision and a calamity for families that Mr White manfully defended and now appears to regret.

White is an old friend and an honourable man but he is now operating under the Big Boys’ Rules of campaigning, where the ends justify the means.

He faces an uphill struggle in his battle with Joan Burton and must make more outrageous allegations and threats to win the support of his party’s grassroots.

I was particularly taken with his concerns about what he regards as the sacking of the former Garda Commissioner – which, as a lawyer, he would know requires specific legal procedures.

Why didn’t he and Labour cabinet ministers make it their business to find out the details at the time?

Why don’t they ask the Taoiseach why the Minister for Justice and the Tánaiste were excluded from the decision?

Why did they give unqualified support to Alan Shatter up to the day he resigned? Why are still giving unqualified support to James Reilly?

It appears that internal campaigning means more to the Labour Party and its membership than its promise to tell the public what is being done in its name.

THERE has been much speculation about the Taoiseach taking over from José Manuel Barroso as head of the EU Commission. But the campaign for him to succeed Herman Van Rompuy as the next president of the European Council has been ignored.

The position comes up for grabs in November and last week, the London Times reported that Tony Blair was lobbying for Van Rompuy’s job too. The job description entails a minimum of chairing two EU summits every six months, permitting Van Rompuy’s successor more in pursuit of leisure and Chateau Pétrus.

ON Monday I had tea and a scone at Pastor James McConnell’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast, the biggest church built in Europe since World War II.

It was days after the furious reaction to his anti-Islamic sermon but I recalled Pastor McConnell’s appearance in Andersonstown Leisure Centre, the heartland of Sinn Féin, three years ago.

Pastor McConnell sailed through 40 years of the Troubles without any hint of sectarianism and he denied holding anti-Catholic views to his exclusively Catholic audience in West Belfast.

Yet as a fundamentalist Christian he was intolerant of other religions:

Jesus ruled out every other religion in the world, he said. And that makes him nearly as intolerant as most fundamentalist Muslims.