Experience the key factor for selection of Ministers

Allegations of sexism are unfounded – posts were given to the most qualified candidates

FEW DECISIONS are as subjective as those concerning who should or should not be appointed to cabinet. An assessment of anyone’s ministerial potential or his or her capacity to fit a particular portfolio is, by its nature, a subjective judgment.

After days, sometimes weeks, of feverish speculation some controversy is linked to the announcement of a new Cabinet. A news angle must be found. If the line-up accords with advance media speculation, it is dismissed as boring. If it includes names or assignments not foretold, it is controversial and the disappointed reactions of those perceived as “losers” are exaggerated to full-scale confrontations.

This week, the choice of Cabinet Ministers fell to Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore. Both parties combined had more than 35 frontbenchers in opposition but, with only 15 Cabinet positions to go around, their choices were always going to disappoint someone.

The predictable torrent of criticism flowed once the new Cabinet was announced as commentators put forward their own subjective judgments in the place of those made by Kenny and Gilmore.

This time however it came with an additional dimension namely, the suggestion that because there are only two women in Cabinet and because Joan Burton did not get a finance-related portfolio, Gilmore’s decisions were sexist.

Even days before the Government was formed, some of the country’s top women commentators were taking umbrage on Joan Burton’s behalf and seeking to characterise anything less than a top job for her as a setback for the advancement of women in politics. If this pre-event commentary was peculiar, the post-event commentary was overblown. Since Wednesday a raft of women commentators have taken to their keyboards to coin phrases laced with sexist insinuations (“a Dáil bar Cabinet”, “bearers of balls who want the big jobs” etc) which, if deployed by male writers about women, would probably leave them open to charges of misogyny.

If one approaches the issue dispassionately one can see many reasons why Joan Burton was not selected for the public expenditure and reform job. Brendan Howlin got the job not because he was male but because he was better qualified for the task.

While the final form of this newly created ministry is still unclear, it seems that rather than being a second Cabinet-level position within the existing Department of Finance, this Minister is to be at the top of a new department into which many existing officials from the Department of Finance and the Department of the Taoiseach are to be moved. Unlike Joan Burton or indeed Pat Rabbitte, Brendan Howlin has previous full cabinet post experience. While Burton did relatively successful stints as minister of state in foreign affairs and in the Department of Social Welfare, she has never run a department.

That is of course not a bar to getting such a position. However, when selecting someone to a portfolio which not only requires the Minister to run his or her own large department but also to reform how all other departments are run, one could see why Howlin would have the edge.

Howlin’s qualification for this ministry arises not from his gender but because as a former minister for the environment and local government and a former minister for health, he has ministerial level experience in departments which oversee the country’s largest public administrations.

The simplistic suggestion that because Burton is an accountant she is more qualified for this post is patent nonsense. The record of accountants as ministers for finance, of lawyers as ministers for justice and of doctors as ministers for health is mixed to say the least. Charlie McCreevy was the last qualified number cruncher to sit at the minister’s desk in Merrion Street.

The suggestion that because Burton excelled as Labour finance spokeswoman in Opposition, she has an automatic claim to a finance-related brief in government is also simplistic. What Burton was strongest on as finance spokeswoman was banking policy and tax equality, neither of which she would have had responsibility for in the role now gone to Howlin.

It is worth noting that with the exception of Ruairí Quinn, none of the Labour Ministers have been appointed to the brief they shadowed in the outgoing Dáil. Only some Fine Gael Ministers retain their opposition portfolios. In fact, it is not always a good idea. It will be fascinating, for example, to see how James Reilly in health and Alan Shatter in justice will get on and whether they live up to the rhetoric at which they excelled in opposition.

In addition to being more qualified, Gilmore may have taken the view that Howlin was more suited to the post. Alongside the relationship between Taoiseach and Tánaiste, the relationship between the Minister for Finance and this new Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform will be the fulcrum around which this Coalition will turn.

If the relationship between the two Merrion Street Ministers works, it will create a dynamic beyond their combined power at the heart of government. If the relationship fails, it will undermine the prospect for transformative change in the public sector. The Noonan-Howlin relationship has a better prospect for success, not because they are both men but because they have previous experience of working together in government and played leading roles for their parties in coalition negotiations.

The choice Gilmore apparently made between Ruairí Quinn’s inclusion and that of Róisín Shortall is similarly shaped by his subjective view of their respective qualifications and experience.

I am not saying that Joan Burton or Róisín Shortall would not have been up to the jobs they desired, far from it. It is just that Brendan Howlin and Ruairí Quinn are better qualified for the positions. If Eamon Gilmore shares the view that they are better qualified, then to appoint Burton and Shortall in their stead would have been, quite simply, sexist.