Nod to lost leader as FG hangs out brightest colours

ANALYSIS:It was Enda Kenny and Fine Gael's day – a day when the scale of their victory became apparent in the Dáil

THE SENSE of hope and history that pervaded the Dáil chamber was captured perfectly by Fine Gael’s youngest TD, Simon Harris, in his speech proposing the nomination of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.

“Today, the period of mourning is over for Ireland. Today, we hang out our brightest colours and together, under Deputy Kenny’s leadership, we move forward yet again as a nation,” said Harris.

He was echoing the phrase coined by the writer George Bernard Shaw in a letter to Michael Collins’s sister, Joanna, after Collins’s assassination in 1922. “So tear up your mourning and hang out your brightest colours in his honour,” urged Shaw in a dark hour for the country as well as the Collins family.

The reference to Fine Gael’s lost leader was apt on the day that the party came into its own as the biggest pary in the Dáil after 80 years of playing second fiddle to Fianna Fáil. Kenny picked up the phrase in his acceptance speech, expressing the hope that it was the first day of a journey to a better future.

For Fine Gael yesterday was a day of hope and triumph as the party’s 76 TDs spilled out across the benches of the chamber.

Long-time party TDs looked a bit dazed by the scale of the election victory as they looked around the Dáil chamber at their own swollen ranks and gazed at the shrivelled remnants of Fianna Fáil across the chamber.

The vote of 117 to 27 for Enda Kenny as Taoiseach gave concrete expression to the huge majority his Coalition Government holds in the Dáil. How it uses that majority to deal with the enormous problems facing the State will be the real challenge. There will be many hard days ahead but yesterday was a day to rejoice for Fine Gael, and Labour TDs for that matter.

The Labour benches also overflowed their banks, right into the section allocated to the three Opposition groupings, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the Independents.

The joy on the Government benches was tempered for experienced TDs as they waited anxiously to discover whether they were going to be summoned by the Taoiseach for inclusion in the Cabinet. There was tension in the air as speculation mounted about the identity of the new Cabinet after the Taoiseach departed to Áras an Uachtaráin to receive his seal of office.

That tension was added to by an unexplained adjournment of the Dáil for half an hour as the Taoiseach put the final touch to his Cabinet. Rumours of last-minute changes circulated through Leinster House but, in the event, the identity of almost all the 15 Cabinet members had been well flagged.

The big shock was that Labour deputy leader Joan Burton did not get the position in Finance that had been so widely expected, and there was also considerable surprise that it went to Brendan Howlin. The expectation had been that Pat Rabbitte might get it instead of Burton but Howlin’s appointment to the post was not expected, even on the Government benches.

Burton’s appointment to the post of Social Protection rather than an economic ministry raised a few eyebrows. With the other female Cabinet Minister, Frances FitzGerald, being given responsibility for children, there were complaints about the stereotyping of women in the “caring departments” and also about the fact that there are just two women Cabinet Ministers out of 15.

There was some surprise that neither of the two prominent Labour women politicians, Róisín Shortall or Jan O’Sullivan, made it to Cabinet.

There were some jibes about the Cabinet being “male and stale” and while the age profile is predominantly grey, it was not quite as elderly as some advance speculation predicted. The 32-year-old Leo Varadkar did deservedly make it to Cabinet, as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, after his commanding media performances during the election. The appointment of another Fine Gael TD, 38-year-old Simon Coveney, as Minister for Agriculture and the Marine, also helped to bring down the average age.

On the Labour side, the appointment of Ruairí Quinn to Education and Skills caused some surprise but, given his impressive record in Finance on the only previous occasion in which Labour held the portfolio, Gilmore would have had great difficulty leaving him out.

Pat Rabbitte’s appointment to Cabinet was expected, even if the portfolio – Communications, Energy and Natural Resources – was not. Willie Penrose in the “super junior” position with responsibility for housing gives a better geographical spread to the party’s Ministers, while Máire Whelan’s appointment as Attorney General will do something for the gender balance around the Cabinet table.

Michael Noonan’s appointment to Finance was expected and it was no surprise that Richard Bruton got Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation. Phil Hogan got Environment as expected and the same applied to James Reilly at Health.

The appointment of Alan Shatter at Justice, Equality and Defence raised a few eyebrows. It will not be a very popular decision in the Law Library, where Fine Gael barristers are already smarting at the appointment of a Labour Attorney General, but maybe that was the point. The combining of the Defence and Justice portfolios is probably overdue.

On the Fine Gael side, the two people who will feel most hard done by are Brian Hayes and Fergus O’Dowd. Both performed very well in the general election but were simply squeezed out by the pressure of numbers. They certainly deserve to be rewarded with junior ministerial positions.

On the Opposition side of the Dáil, Micheál Martin started off well by promising constructive opposition but the number of digs he got in during the day indicates that Fianna Fáil will revert to its traditional ruthless Opposition style although it may be difficult to pull off with just 20 TDs.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams took an adversarial but polite approach on his first day in the Dáil, while a variety of Independents also made their presence felt.

However, the day belonged to the Government parties and particularly to Fine Gael. The warm glow of its memory will be needed in the difficult days ahead.

Stephen Collins is Political Editor