September 29, 2004
Three Hail Marys
The much-heralded cabinet reshuffle took place today and surprise surprise, there were no surprises. Brian Cowen was appointed Finance Minister and given his penchant for stuffing his own constituency with government agencies, don't be surprised if the Central Bank is decentralised to High St., Tullamore. Dermot Ahern replaces him in the department of foreign affairs and Mary Harney moves into the Dept. of Health. It will be interesting to see how her PD free-market, anti-monopoly philosophy is received in that department. Two other Marys have been appointed to the cabinet - Mary Hanafin to Education, and Mary Coughlan from Donegal to Agriculture. Martin Cullen always gave the impression that he saw the environment as just a good place to lay tarmac, so he should be happy with his move to the Transport ministry.
Of course, every region of the country was worried that they would lose 'their' minsiters, and no-one was more worried than the ministers themselves. So last week, every minister was falling over himself/herself with announcements of future works so that, should they be replaced and someone else claim the credit for delivering the bypass/swimming-pool/hospital extension, they could always pull out their old press releases and hope to share in the glory (hence the contretemps last week between Frank Fahey and Noel Grealish over the proposed ClareGalway bypass). There was a fear in Galway that at least one of the three existing ministers would get the chop, but Eamonn O' Cuiv has retained his Ministry while Frank Fahey and Noel Treacy have been assigned to other (junior) ministries.
Down in Limerick, promotion has come at last for Willie O'Dea, a man who firmly believes in attack as being the best form of defence, or even as away of just saying hello. So he's the right man for the Dept. of Defence - if there was ever a chance for the Navy to get an aircraft carrier, this is it.
Posted by Monasette at September 29, 2004 10:46 PM