FG WOMEN:‘LEO THE LIBERAL’ IS JUST A VENEER
Extraordinary attack by female TDs on new leader
FINE Gael women say Leo Varadkar’s liberal credentials are just ‘a veneer’ and that he lacks the required ‘magic’ to lead the party to success.
Days after the new Taoiseach was criticised for including just three FG women in his Cabinet, some party figures have lashed Mr Varadkar who, as a self-professed champion of equality, was expected to show favour to women.
One Dublin TD Maria Bailey said she had been surprised at the lack of inclusivity in Mr Varadkar’s Cabinet. She said his much-vaunted liberal values were ‘a perception – we knew that he wasn’t liberal, that’s a veneer’.
TD Kate O’Connell, scathing about Mr Varadkar’s first 10 days in office, said she was ‘waiting to see the magic happen’.
Meanwhile, a source close to Mr Varadkar said he would be hiring ‘attractive’ women for
his backroom team to redress the gender balance and reclaim the narrative on the woman issue.
As the three women in the Cabinet – Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Arts Minister Heather Humphreys and newcomer Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty – remained silent last night, another female member of the Fine Gael parliamentary party was scathing about Mr Varadkar’s performance so far.
‘Leo said he would have the courage to take us forward, but little evidence of that has appeared yet,’ the politician, who did not want to be named, said. ‘Courage does not come in the shape of more jobs for the boys.
‘Courage does not come in cringey rom-com references, as families, mere streets away from No.10 [Downing Street] desperately searched for their loved ones missing in the tower fire,’ she said.
‘This is the opposite of considerate and thoughtful politics, indeed it betrays a sense of arrogance.’
The woman TD said the line that Mr Varadkar had only 11 women TDs to choose from was ‘a bulls**t excuse’.
Another woman TD claimed none of the Taoiseach’s close advisers are women. ‘There’s no women in the Taoiseach’s office,’ she said. ‘I think there is one in there, and she’s there to make the tea.’
Mr Varadkar’s first days in the office
‘Cringey rom-com references’
of Taoiseach have been eventful. On Monday, he appeared to draw a line under the controversial decision to appoint Attorney General Máire Whelan to the Court of Appeal by accompanying Ms Whelan to Áras an Uachtaráin.
A few hours later, as he met British Prime Minister Theresa May at No.10 Downing Street, he gushed about a scene from Love Actually, a saccharine Hugh Grant movie.
Meanwhile, his failure to promote more women to senior roles has rankled within the party.
He opted to make senior minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor a ‘super junior minister’ and left other talented women such as Kate O’Connell, Maria Bailey, Josepha Madigan and the demoted Marcella Corcoran Kennedy on the backbenches.
Party members were shocked at public reaction to a photograph that showed 13 male junior ministers and just two women, Helen McEntee and Catherine Byrne, in their ranks.
The Taoiseach claimed his Cabinet was diverse because it included people from ‘Donegal to Wexford, and, of course, people who are members of the LGBT community’.
Fine Gael’s three women senior ministers refused to answer requests to support their female colleagues last night.
Dún Laoghaire TD Ms Bailey says that she was surprised at Mr Varadkar’s lack of opportunity for women considering his strongly articulated liberal credentials.
Addressing what she termed his ‘veneer’ of liberal values, she referenced his campaign launch last month when he served pastries to the media. She said: ‘Here are the cupcakes, here is the script… I don’t need a script: either you believe in yourself and you know what you’re trying to do or you don’t.’
Ms Bailey was a leading supporter of Simon Coveney in the leadership battle. Mr Coveney was promoted to Minister for Foreign Affairs. The only Cabinet minister to support Mr Coveney, Simon Harris, retained his position at the Department of Health.
‘We’re in politics to make a dif-
ference, I am absolutely not bitter over me not being promoted,’ said Ms Bailey.
She said friends outside politics had commented on the lack of women in the Cabinet. ‘They’re saying: “That looks like a boys’ club – how do you do it?”’
Dublin Bay South TD Ms O’Connell also played a prominent role in Mr Coveney’s campaign. She said yesterday: ‘I supported Coveney, and made no secret of that. But when Leo won I resolved to give him the space to “work his magic” with the job.
‘I’m waiting to see the magic happen. He inspired intense public support from many of my colleagues. Some of them surprised me – I hadn’t known the level of devotion he commanded. Maybe I’m just a bit slower at catching up, and I’ll be totally devoted soon too.’
The Irish Mail on Sunday contacted Fine Gael’s women Cabinet Ministers by phone and text on Friday, asking them to comment on the row. All three refused to comment or support their female colleagues.
One disgusted Fine Gael woman TD said: ‘Where’s Regina [Doherty, Social Protection Minister] gone? Where is Heather [Humphreys, Arts Minister] gone? Why is Frances [Fitzgerald, An Tánaiste] not speaking on this? They’re supposed to lead from the top. You cannot get women into politics unless you see women at the top and not on the back benches. It has to be tangible for them to realise it can happen.’
Super Junior Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor, who was demoted from the Cabinet, also failed to respond to requests. She said on Thursday that Mr Varadkar was ‘not leading by example’ on the diversity issue.
There are five women on the backbenches without jobs in the Dáil – Ms Bailey, Ms O’Connell, Galway West TD Hildegarde Naughton, Dublin-Rathdown TD Josepha Madigan, and Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, the Offaly TD demoted from the rank of junior minister.
Ms Madigan may be given the chair of a committee.
Mr Varadkar’s defenders explained his decision not to promote more women by the fact that there are only 11 female Fine Gael TDs.
One of the two junior ministers retained by Mr Varadkar, Catherine Byrne of Dublin South Central, does not believe Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar have an issue with women.
‘I honestly don’t,’ said the Junior Health Minister with responsibility for health promotion. ‘There are a lot more people in the party and in political life now than there ever were.’
‘Attractive colleagues will join us soon’
However, she acknowledged that Mr Varadkar had had a ‘rocky’ start to his premiership.
She replaces Ms Corcoran Kennedy, who spent five years working on a Fine Gael committee tasked with looking into how to get more women involved in politics. She was involved in formulating legislation on gender quotas.
She said so many men had been involved in Mr Varadkar’s campaign team that the Taoiseach had been forced to accommodate them when he won the leadership contest. ‘That’s just the way it goes,’ she said. ‘I’m not bitter about it.’
In the wake of criticism over the past week, a source close to Mr Varadkar said last night that the Taoiseach will be hiring ‘attractive’ women as advisers in the weeks ahead. ‘We’re hiring at the moment,’ the source said. ‘We’ve a couple of interesting announcements coming up. And attractive colleagues will be joining us, I hope, within the next couple of weeks in Government Buildings.’
The source confirmed that he was referring to women.
A source close to the Taoiseach acknowledged that there were ‘PR difficulties’ surrounding the junior ministerial appointments.
The Government says that Mr Varadkar has not officially announced his backroom team.
On Friday, the Taoiseach said: ‘I would like to see a lot more women in politics.
‘I’m somebody who believes in diversity. I don’t think diversity, by the way, is just about gender.’