Politics will certainly be more interesting with Michael McDowell as Tánaiste, writes Stephen Collins, Political Correspondent
Michael McDowell's accession to the leadership of the Progressive Democrats, in time for the party's 21st birthday celebrations in December, is appropriate, given his crucial role in the party's foundation and development.
Along with the honour, though, goes the enormous responsibility of ensuring that the PDs are still around as a political force when their 22nd birthday comes around next year.
Mr McDowell's intelligence, energy and drive are not in doubt but the real question is whether he has the temperament for leadership. There is no shortage of cynics in the political world who believe that he is simply not capable of exercising the restraint required of a party leader. It is hardly a secret that some prominent PDs share this view.
The string of controversies in which the Minister for Justice embroiled himself in the few months before the summer break did raise doubts about his judgment. However, impetuousness has gone hand in hand with brilliance throughout his political career and both qualities go to make him the formidable political operator he is.
His decision to climb a lamp post in the middle of the last election campaign to unveil the poster "Single Party Government - No Thanks" came to be viewed as a stroke of genius in the aftermath of a hugely successful election campaign for the PDs.
Yet before the results of the 2002 election rolled in, there were many who viewed the stunt as a gross political blunder.
Mr McDowell's success or failure as a political leader will be defined by how his party performs in the next election. His party colleagues expect that they are in for a bumpy ride but they won't really care if they hold their seats and come back to the next Dáil as a continuing political force.
Predictions that that the new leader will inevitably kick over the traces and prompt a break-up of the Coalition are premature. While Mr McDowell has always been assertive, he has shown a capacity to work as a team player in a coalition that few would have forecast when he was hauled out of the political wilderness by Mary Harney to become attorney general in 1999.
At that stage most Fianna Fáil TDs were aghast. They remembered Mr McDowell as the PD party chairman who had pontificated from the sidelines during the first coalition with Fianna Fáil from 1989 to 1992 and regularly called the bigger coalition party to account for its mistakes.
He also made rude remarks at their expense which might not have been meant to be taken seriously but which were.
On one famous occasion he joked that a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting to discuss the 19th protocol to the Maastricht Treaty was "pregnant with all the possibilities of a band of chimpanzees approaching the back of a television set with screwdrivers". When the comment was picked up by a journalist and carried on the radio the then party leader, Des O'Malley, was said to have nearly slit his throat shaving.
The comment was not intended to be as contemptuous as it appeared. Mr McDowell can't resist a good line and often made jokes at his own party's expense. He once called Mary Harney and Liz O'Donnell the "Thelma and Louise" of Irish politics, going around the country leaving mayhem and confusion in their wake.
The basic political point is that he was one of the first leading PDs to advocate coalition with Fianna Fáil in 1989 and he was strongly in favour of the deal in 1997, even though he had lost his seat on both occasions and was in no position to benefit by obtaining office. In his role as attorney general from 1999 to 2002, he was a loyal and committed government supporter.
While he cut loose in the 2002 election once the Coalition was back in office and he was Minister for Justice he settled down to work amicably with his Fianna Fáil cabinet colleagues and did not try to embarrass them when the going got tough by public comments or media leaks.
So it would be a mistake to assume that when he becomes Tánaiste, Mr McDowell will want to pick a row with the Taoiseach and lead his party out of Government at the first opportunity.
What he will want to do is to generate a much higher profile for the PDs and to stress the role they are playing in Government and the fact that they are a very different party from Fianna Fáil with a distinct political agenda.
There is no doubt that over the past two years or so the image of the PDs has been subsumed into that of the Government as a whole.
To some extent that was inevitable during a second term of office, particularly when Mary Harney opted to leave Enterprise and Employment and take over as Minister for Health. Taking over the Government's biggest political problem was a recipe for trouble.
There was also an aura of tiredness about the PDs over the past 12 months or so as party trustee Paul Mackay conceded yesterday. A change of leadership in itself should give the PDs a short-term jolt.
As leader Mr McDowell will certainly bring energy to the job and will inevitably attract huge media attention. If he can use that widely, the PDs' chances in the next election should improve, although the odds will still be stacked against the party.
While Mr McDowell will hardly set out to break up the Government, his efforts to raise the profile of the PDs will inevitably put its own strains on the Coalition.
How Fianna Fáil reacts to the new PD leader will add another point of stress.
One thing is sure and that is that politics will certainly be more interesting with Michael McDowell as Tánaiste.