THE TAOISEACH dropped three long-serving Ministers of State and promoted five backbenchers to fill the available vacancies in his reshuffle of the junior ministerial posts. Mr Cowen followed the precedent set by Bertie Ahern last year and appointed 20 junior Ministers.
The biggest winner in the reshuffle was Tipperary South TD Martin Mansergh, who was elected to the Dáil for the first time last year at the age of 60, after a distinguished career as an adviser to successive Fianna Fáil taoisigh. He was elected to the Seanad in 2002.
Mr Mansergh was appointed as Minister of State for Finance with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, traditionally regarded as the most independent of the junior posts. He was also given responsibility for the arts and will effectively run that section of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, with his senior Minister, Martin Cullen, focusing on sport and tourism.
Dublin Mid-West TD John Curran was appointed as Minister of State with responsibility for drugs strategy and community affairs, while Limerick East TD Peter Power becomes Minister for State at the Department of Foreign Affairs with responsibility for overseas development. John Moloney, from the Taoiseach's constituency of Laois-Offaly, was appointed Minister of State with responsibility for equality, disability issues and mental health, while Michael Finneran from Roscommon-South Leitrim took over responsibility for housing, urban renewal and developing areas.
While three ministers were dropped, there were five vacancies because two of the outgoing junior ministerial team, Brendan Smith and Batt O'Keeffe, were promoted to the Cabinet.
The three to lose out in the reshuffle were long-serving ministers of State, Pat "The Cope" Gallagher from Donegal South-West, Michael Ahern from Cork East and John Browne from Wexford.
Mr Cowen ignored calls to reduce the number of junior ministers, which was increased from 17 to 20 after the last election.
Fine Gael spokesman on enterprise and employment Leo Varadkar accused the Taoiseach of "bottling it" by not cutting the number of Ministers of State when he had a unique opportunity to set down a marker and save the taxpayer money. "With the new ministerial pay hikes, the combined salary of junior and senior ministers will now reach €7,240,000 a year. This cannot be justified and, once again, Brian Cowen has demonstrated he is all bluster and no bottle," said Mr Varadkar.
