ANALYSISEnda Kenny has rewarded the praetorian guard that protected him in the recent heave against his leadership. And banished many of the rebellious upstarts, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
EXPERIENCE HAS replaced youth as the dominant theme of Enda Kenny’s new front bench. The Fine Gael leader has banished some of the younger members of the old front bench who conspired against him two weeks ago and replaced them with wily old hands as well as new faces from the backbenches.
With an election possible at any stage from the autumn onwards, the addition of experience to the Fine Gael team could be an advantage. The downside is that some of the most talented younger members of the parliamentary party have been sent into internal exile at the wrong time.
Kenny made the point at his press conference that he will consider everybody for ministerial office when it comes to forming a government after the next election but, given the reality of the numbers game, those who have been dropped will have to perform extraordinarily well to have a remote chance of getting into the cabinet.
There are 21 members on the front bench announced yesterday but, at most, there will be 10 cabinet places available if Fine Gael forms a coalition with the Labour Party after the election. Over half the front bench can expect to be disappointed, never mind those sent to the backbenches.
The two most high-profile new members of the front bench are Michael Noonan and Seán Barrett, both of whom served as ministers in the Garret FitzGerald government of the 1980s and the John Bruton rainbow coalition of the 1990s.
Noonan is a formidable politician of the first rank, who will be well able to punch his weight as finance spokesman. He came through political fire as minister for justice in the 1980s and as minister for health during the Hepatitis C controversy of the 1980s before becoming party leader in 2001.
Politically he took a back seat after the Fine Gael election disaster of 2002 and his wife’s illness but, over the past year, he has recovered his old political form and has made incisive contributions in the Dáil on the banking crisis and the state of the public finances. Noonan has suffered considerable bad fortune in his political career but the heave against Kenny has created an unexpected opportunity for him and there are few people in politics who would begrudge him his late break.
The return of Barrett in the foreign affairs portfolio was a bigger surprise than the Noonan comeback but, again, it marks the return of a vastly experienced politician to the front rank of Fine Gael at a critical time in the political cycle. He will be an asset to Kenny.
Deirdre Clune, John Perry and David Stanton have previous frontbench experience, while Andrew Doyle, Catherine Byrne and Frank Feighan are newcomers. All of them have only a short time to prove themselves if they are to have any chance of getting into the Cabinet.
The decision of Richard Bruton to accept a frontbench post was vitally important for the cohesion of the party. He is still a hugely popular and respected figure in Fine Gael, and securing his continued involvement at a senior level was critical.
Bruton has been given responsibility for his cherished project of public service reform as part of his responsibilities at enterprise, jobs and employment. It was shrewd of Kenny to give this responsibility to Bruton with the clear implication that he will be given a cabinet post with responsibility for public service reform if the party achieves power.
One certainty for the cabinet if Kenny leads Fine Gael into office after the election is Phil Hogan, who played such an important role in protecting his leader during the heave. Hogan has remained in environment, at his own instigation, but significantly he has been appointed as the party’s director of elections.
Following the last election, Hogan was unceremoniously removed as director of organisation by Kenny. It was widely regarded as a put-down for the Carlow Kilkenny TD for failing to bring in a running mate, despite the party’s great performance in the 2007 election. His elevation to the position of director of elections puts Hogan into a powerful position in Fine Gael in advance of the next election, which has the potential to be the best in the party’s history.
Other big winners in the reshuffle were Dublin North TD James Reilly, promoted to the post of deputy leader after only three years in the Dáil; and Dublin South TD Alan Shatter, promoted to the justice portfolio in which he has such expertise. Both men are now almost certainties for the next cabinet.
Jimmy Deenihan and Michael Ring will also be happy with promotions that will put them in the frame for cabinet positions, while Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney, Charlie Flanagan and Fergus O’Dowd avoided the chop for picking the losing side. They live to fight another day with some chance of cabinet preferment. The other side of the coin is that the axe could not have fallen at a worse time for Brian Hayes, Denis Naughten and Michael Creed. All three not only represent the young face of Fine Gael but showed during their time on the front bench that they have a lot of political ability.
All they can do now is concentrate on holding their seats and living to fight another day. As recent events in Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition demonstrate, politics is the most unpredictable business of all and there is no knowing when opportunity might come knocking again.
Stephen Collins is Political Editor