How stupid are these people?

COMMENT

Are they stupid or what? I mean all those people who expressed shock at Brian Cowen’s cabinet reshuffle last week.

We have here the most unpopular government we have ever had and no matter what Brian Cowen does he is going to be criticised.
People are acting as if they are surprised he did not carry out a root-and-branch reshuffle of his ministers.
Everybody knew in advance that he was going to make the minimum of changes. Yet now we have had opposition spokesmen, political commentators and Fianna Fáil backbenchers – especially Fianna Fáil backbenchers – acting as if they were expecting widespread changes in government personnel.
Fianna Fáil TDs who have never had a taste of power would naturally be hoping that they might get the nod this time. So they would naturally be at least disappointed, and, perhaps, angry, that they were passed over once again.
Brian Cowen could not possibly please everybody.
Weighing up all possible options he would have known that he had very few options. Being a naturally cautious fellow, he would not have wanted to make many changes. But he had to bring in two new people to replace Willie O’Dea and Martin Cullen. So he opted for two new people with ability and experience, Tony Killeen and Pat Carey.
They are saying he should have appointed younger people. So you are over the top at 59? That’s news to me and will come as a shock to all those people who are saying the age of retirement should be raised from 65 to 70 because we are all living longer nowadays.
But if he had gone for a couple of young fellows instead, he would have been criticised for appointing inexperienced people in these critical economic times.
Should he have appointed Timmy Dooley, say, rather than Tony Killeen? Fianna Fáil in Clare is divided enough already without making things far worse.
I am not arguing that Brian Cowen did all the right things last week. For the life of me, I cannot understand why he is so loyal to Mary Coughlan. I could never understand why she was made a senior minister in the first place by Bertie Ahern eight years ago and then given an even more senior department two years ago by Brian Cowen. If he wanted to shift her this time he should have moved her to Defence and moved Tony Killeen or Pat Carey to Education.
But really it is not going to make a huge difference one way or the other. Fianna Fáil is facing the loss of 20 to 30 seats at the next general election, whenever that will be. The best that Cowen can do is limit the damage as much as possible. And that’s not going to be easy in these awful economic times.
He is going to have his work cut out for him by holding this shaky government together for the next year or two. Can we see a really serious heave against him somewhere down the line? Anything is possible. A refusal by a few disgruntled Fianna Fáil TDs to back some government decisions could precipitate an election at any time.
We all thought that having got over a number of serious obstacles last year, the Government should be able to last the course. Now I doubt it. Even though the Greens are quiet and docile at the moment, they are not going to stay that way. They will have to walk some time and it cannot be over a job in Europe or an extra junior minister for one or two of their own. It will have to be over a matter of conscience or principle. And there are going to be plenty of those options in the coming years or even months.
The Greens will have to fight the next election on an anti-Fianna Fáil platform. And to do that they will have to split from Fianna Fáil rather than staying in bed with them to the bitter end.
We can have no idea now when they will leave or on what issue. But, of course, they may be beaten to it by any number of Fianna Fáil TDs who believe this Government is going nowhere.
Take the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny where you have three sitting Fianna Fáil TDs and one Green. Two of those four seats are up for grabs now. At least one of the three Fianna Fáil TDs is going to bite the dust and all three have expressed disappointment with the Government in one form or another.
So any one of them is liable to stand as an Independent candidate at the next election. The same can happen in other constituencies all over the country where Fianna Fáil cannot expect to hold the seats they have.
As happened at the local elections last year, many of those people may feel they are better off without the Fianna Fáil label than with it.
In the meantime, Brian Cowen will try and hold what he has and pray for miracles. And it looks as if the first miracle might have taken place this week with the signing of a new public service pay deal on Tuesday morning. But Brian Cowen needs a lot more miracles than that one.