Few smiles on Bridge of Sighs
Damaged egos and old party traditions go out the window as new Taoiseach and the Munster mafia are smiling
THIS is a Government that casts aside all the precepts of politics. For politics is ultimately about numbers and all the old luxury considerations of geography, political advancement and friendships were jettisoned.
Diminished seat numbers have forced Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil together in Coalition. With the Greens in Government as well, there is too little room for the old political chess moves.
While Leinster House and the National Convention Centre were littered with political casualties yesterday, the unprecedented Coalition of enemies meant that damaged egos were not primary considerations anymore.
In the old days, particularly under massive Fianna Fáil majorities, jobs were widely distributed in strategic sections across the country.
That meant Fine Gael was kept down, or visa versa, and votes were reinforced and increased.
In 2020 we have three of the most senior Government figures in the one constituency of Cork South Central. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath are all in the one small area of Cork.
There are two ministers – Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Higher Education (and his predecessor at Health) Simon Harris – in the small Wicklow town of Greystones.
Independent Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice said he was ‘baffled’ at a huge red area he had drawn on a map and displayed in the Dáil last night.
It displayed a vast stretch – in red – from the top of Donegal down to the top of Kerry that is lacking a senior Cabinet minister.
New Fianna Fáil TD for Kerry, Norma Foley, who has impressed many in her parliamentary party since she was elected, was appointed to the prestigious position of Minister for Education, however.
In Irish minds Kerry is a Munster county. So the Western seaboard counties of Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal have no Cabinet minister.
Roscommon and Longford deputies weren’t happy either.
Sligo-Leitrim TD Marian Harkin expressed outrage publicly in the Dáil along with Mr Fitzmaurice. But Fianna Fáil TDs said they weren’t as outraged as Dara Calleary and Anne Rabbitte. Mr Calleary, the Fianna Fáil deputy leader, and Anne
Rabbitte had been widely tipped for Cabinet. But Micheál Martin showed his steel with his appointments.
Spurning expectant allies and ignoring potential leadership challengers was something that had to be done. With two years as Taoiseach ahead, Mr Martin suspects there would be time to rally opposition in his parliamentary party.
Nevertheless there are stormy years ahead.
Not only were the old teachings forgotten, the old traditions of the Dáil were cast aside for the obvious reason of the pandemic.
The visually beautiful but unfamiliar and sterile surroundings of the National Convention Centre were used as a Dáil chamber yesterday to accommodate social distancing requirements. But as soon as the Dáil elected Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin Taoiseach, and after he had been officially ratified by President Michael D Higgins, the Corkman returned to the sprawling Leinster House/Government Buildings complex.
Leo Varadkar went to the Tánaiste’s office and the Night of the Long Knives began.
There is a spot down four flights of stairs and out a side door of the Leinster House engineering block that you can see out the window of my office. There’s a smoking area there. Chatting to committed smoker and former minister Finian McGrath a while back, I noticed that you can see up into the glass bridge, many feet above, that connects Leinster House to Government Buildings.
It occurred to me yesterday that I could get a unique vantage point on who was to get what job. When prospective ministers get ‘the call’ they have to walk what is known in Leinster House as the ‘Bridge of Sighs’. Yesterday, because of the unique nature of this Coalition, there were some unhappy walkers too.
The Fine Gael ministers who were demoted had to walk it first.
I’ve been a political correspondent for many reshuffles and government formations in Leinster House over the last two decades and I’ve not witnessed anything like the visceral anger that dominated conversations yesterday.
Fine Gael got six full ministries, Fianna Fáil received six and, extraordinarily for a party with only 12 TDs, the Green Party received three full ministries.
Fine Gael had an unnatural number of ministers in the last minority coalition because it was supported by only a small number of independents. Two new parties had to be accommodated, so this led to a Night of the Long Knives more vicious than anything seen in Irish politics since Albert Reynolds fired most of Charles Haughey’s former cabinet. Micheal Ring; Michael Creed, Josepha Madigan, Charlie Flanagan and the others were told by outgoing taoiseach Leo Varadkar that they were out of jobs. It is a great many, powerful and respected Fine Gael TDs to demote at once. They will now rally on the junior ministerial benches and back benches where they can only cause trouble.
Minutes after Mr Varadkar had doled out the bad news, I saw a woman in a blue dress walk across the bridge. It was Helen McEntee, the outgoing minister for European Affairs. I grabbed a civil servant and ascertained she had been given
‘Spurning expectant allies had to be done’
the Department of Justice. It is an honour for any TD but for a Fine
Gael politician, it means more.
They are the party known as custodians of law and order and one of their founding fathers, Kevin O’Higgins, was shot while holding that office. In a Dáil and Government where women are underrepresented it is a statement from Leo Varadkar.
In the Dáil Members Restaurant, nervous Fianna Fáil TDs sat around in socially distant groups. At one table, hopefuls Dublin-Fingal TD Darragh O’Brien and Laois-Offaly TD Barry Cowen were with newlyelected TD Paul McAuliffe. Verona
Murphy sat with a friend at a table for two. Widely touted future Fianna Fáil leader Jim O’Callaghan was hunched with former minister and MEP Billy Kelleher and his friend from Cork and Limerick County, TD Niall Collins.
Mr O’Callaghan appeared to sense it wasn’t his day. He raised laugh when he read out a text reminding him politics is a ‘long game’. ‘You know you’re in trouble when friends are sending you those texts before the jobs are announced!’ he joked.
As I walked from the smoking area, Stephen Donnelly ran by with an earnest face, leaping up a set of backstairs that leads to the Department of the Taoiseach. He passed Michael McGrath on his way down. That was the two of them in. A friend told me Darragh O’Brien was seen walking up the main staircase, as was Norma Foley. That was four of the five. Mr Donnelly, who Mr Martin personally recruited from the Social Democrats, was appointed Minister for Health. Mr McGrath became Public Expenditure Minister; Mr O’Brien will face the monumental challenge at the Department of Housing and Ms Foley, daughter of former TD Denis Foley, becomes Minister for Education.
Barry Cowen and Thomas Byrne were seen as the competitors for the last Cabinet seat. Mr Cowen was in Mr Byrne’s office when the Offaly TD got his call to. I saw Mr Cowen traverse the bridge and realised he had Agriculture.
Mr Byrne didn’t appear on the bridge and it wasn’t to be the Fianna Fail troubleshooter-in-chief’s day.
But it was immediately leaked that he’s in line for the job of junior minister for European Affairs, a gilded and glamourous consolation.
But there was confusion. Fianna Fáil deputy leader Dara Calleary had also walked the bridge. Why had six people been called over to discuss five Cabinet appointments. It then emerged that, in the biggest shock of the day, Mr Calleary had been appointed Chief Whip.
He will have to decide whether to relinquish a highly successful senior counsel career for a less than attractive junior ministerial post.
But these are issues for another day. And as we have seen over the first six months of this year, politics moves ever faster.
‘This led to a vicious Night of Long Knives’