Cabinet reshuffle opts for safety over real surprises

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

I wrote last week about the perils of predictions – and then went on to predict that the new Cabinet would be announced by the time the column appeared.

How wrong could I be; I should really have known that it never works out like that.

Last week panned out like Tom Crean and Ernest Shackleton heading across the Antarctic. “And on the fifth day, we finally saw it…South Georgia and Pat Rabbitte sloping off into the distance.”

The Coalition now has about 20 months to turn the ship and avoid that massive iceberg that will hit around the spring of 2016.

Is there enough the change of line-up and in the ten-page document on political priorities to avoid a repeat of the drubbing both parties took in the local elections in May?

Naturally, the changes in Labour were more profound. The party has a new leader and a new team. All of the old guard were driven out, even though Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte had some expectations they might be retained.

But Burton (older than both) said the membership has spoken and the class of 2011 needed its day. And so along with deputy leader Alan Kelly, Alex White was also promoted.

It was always a racing certainty that Burton would promote a second woman. The only surprise was that it was Jan O’Sullivan rather than Kathleen Lynch. Time may show that it was a strategic mistake consigning the very able and articulate Rabbitte to the dung heap. But then, if he was retained, Burton would have been accused of having been too conservative.

On the Fine Gael side, those who have no expectations are never disappointed. It’s well known that Kenny is very conservative when it comes to shake-ups and reshuffles.

His experience was tempered by the 1980s when Garret FitzGerald tried to effect a radical reshuffle and it backfired spectacularly, when several Ministers (including health minister Barry Desmond) refused to budge.

There was a feeling that Kenny might not fire anybody, with Alan Shatter’s resignation two months ago an excuse not to act. There was also talk that Michael Noonan visited Kenny after returning from Brussels last week and talked Deenihan back into the starting fifteen (Noonan later denied this).

As it transpired, Deenihan was the only casualty of the ten Fine Gael Ministers. And then he wasn’t exactly fired but demoted to the sub’s bench where a new junior ministry was created for him. He has responsibility for the Diaspora and for the 1916 commemoration which sounds a little bit like Lionel Messi getting the gong for being the best player at the World Cup.

There’s a debate about whether or not reshuffles make any real difference, other than give the incumbent Government a bit of a boost that withers away with time. The problem with radical reshuffles is that they can backfire – sometimes spectacularly.

The obvious example is that of the long knives in January 2011 when Brian Cowen essentially arranged for the resignation of almost all Fianna Fáil members of Cabinet in an attempt to bring in new blood. His close advisers thought it was a great idea.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.