MR RAY BURKE'S appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs was expected. The handing of an as yet undefined responsibility for European Affairs and a role in the Northern political talks to Mr David Andrews was not.
While no detailed explanation for the new construction was given last night, it appears that Mr Andrews, while Minister for Defence, will also have a junior role under Mr Burke in European Affairs and in the Northern talks.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, maintained in the Dail that Mr Burke would now be Mr Andrews's "boss". This was a "bizarre form of Cabinet construction" and an unusual relationship between two full Ministers. The Labour leader, Mr Dick Spring, suggested that one Minister was being made subservient to another and that this might be unconstitutional.
Mr Ahern said that Mr Andrews's responsibility for European Affairs would be "under the direction of the Minister for Foreign Affairs". His Northern role would be to "assist the Minister for Foreign Affairs in representing the Government at the Northern peace talks".
Mr Andrews would have his own office in the Department of Foreign Affairs as well as in the Department of Defence, Mr Ahern said. Mr Burke, however, would have "no loss of function or overall policy direction". The change was planned, he said, because of the very heavy schedule of meetings ministers for foreign affairs have to cope with.
It is impossible to judge how well this will work as an arrangement until it has been operating for some time.
With the Northern Ireland political process at a crucial stage, Mr Burke and Mr Andrews will have no time at all to read themselves into the brief. However, they will both be on familiar territory: Mr Andrews is a former minister for foreign affairs, while Mr Burke has been his party's very active spokesman on foreign affairs and Northern Ireland since 1994.
In relation to Northern Ireland, they face into a crucial month or more. The IRA has been given five weeks in which to announce an unequivocal ceasefire, following which, as Mr Tony Blair has said, "the settlement train is leaving, with or without Sinn Fein".
During this time the Government will attempt to use whatever influence Fianna Fail has over the republican movement to persuade it to get on to that train.
Mr Burke's and probably Mr Andrews's first engagement with the North's constitutional parties will be at Stormont next Tuesday. The plenary session of the talks there will consider the decommissioning document agreed this week by the British and Irish governments.
The following Sunday just nine days away, comes the Drumcree march and its potential for sectarian violence. Mr Burke will undoubtedly be in contact with the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, on this next week.
While seeking to represent the interests of Northern nationalists - Mr Ahern said during the election campaign that this should be the Government's primary function in relation to the North - Mr Burke will be anxious that the potential conflagration there is defused.
Mr Burke and Mr Andrews will also have a demanding foreign policy agenda. The new EU treaty agreed at Amsterdam is due to be signed in October and then put to a referendum, probably early next year.
EU enlargement negotiations are expected to start at the end of this year and are likely to continue at least until the end of 1999. Irish ministers will be charged with defending Irish interests in those negotiations. In particular, Ireland's share of EU structural, cohesion and agricultural funding will be under pressure when new and poorer central and eastern European states join the Union.
The new Minister will have to consider a report from Department officials on their discussions with NATO last year on the possibility of Ireland becoming involved in the NATO sponsored Partnership for Peace (PfP) Programme.