Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
AFTER FOUR DAYS of waiting and many, many rumours swirling around Leinster House the Cabinet has been reshuffled with Enda Kenny announcing his changes in the Dáil this afternoon.
Though several ministers are staying put, there are a number on the move and even more dropped from the Cabinet altogether.
Labour has instigated a more radical reshuffle than Fine Gael dropping three ministers to the senior coalition partner’s two – one of which has been enforced with Phil Hogan’s departure to the EU Commission.
Here’s what you need to know about the changes announced today.
1. Steady hands stay put
As expected Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin have stayed put in the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure respectively. They are steady hands who have overseen a dramatic economic restructuring in recent years and got the economy growing again. They were never likely to be moved from two of the most important departments in government.
Elsewhere Simon Coveney stays at Agriculture having performed strongly there over the past three years. He takes on Defence from the Taoiseach who himself had taken it on board after Alan Shatter’s departure. There’s no surprise that Shatter’s successor Frances Fitzgerald stays put as she sets about implementing a series of changes at the department.
Joan Burton wants to continue her reforms in Social Protection while Richard Bruton’s steady performance at Jobs ensures he remains despite Labour attempts to wrestle that department from Fine Gael’s control. This underlines the extent to which the Taoiseach is sticking with what he knows works best in some of the most important departments.
2. Leo’s big move
Leo Varadkar’s move to the Department of Health is a radical one given his propensity to speak his mind without fear of upsetting people. Varadkar will want to set realistic goals which are achievable in the 18 or so months he will have at the department which is famed for its inefficiency and was once likened to Angola – full of land mines.
Will those goals include introducing free GP care to all by 2016? And what of the review team set up to examine the case for granting medical cards on medical need? This is a radical shift in policy that doctors have expressed deep misgivings about. Will Varadkar stay the course with it or shut it down?
3. Reilly gets a consolation prize
What to do with James Reilly? That was the big headache for Kenny ahead of this reshuffle and to an extent he has found a suitable home for the embattled now-former health minister who has taken on a department vaguely connected with his passion.
Children are a group Reilly is targeting heavily with his anti-smoking campaign and this department will allow him to continue that work. But there is no doubt it is a demotion for the Fine Gael deputy leader who will have to contend with the establishment of the mother and baby homes inquiry that is sure to be lengthy and not without its problems.
4. So Charlie Flanagan gets a promotion
After barely two months in the Cabinet, the Laois Offaly TD is on the move again with a big promotion to the prestigious Department of Foreign Affairs, which Fine Gael gets in exchange for Environment.
Flanagan was left disappointed when he failed to get any ministry in 2011 so this has been a big few months for him and he’ll relish the significant prestige that comes with this role as he travels abroad to represent Ireland. He’ll also have the not insignificant challenge of the issues in Northern Ireland.
5. Labour didn’t get Jobs, and may rue getting Environment
Labour has taken the Environment portfolio from Fine Gael with the party’s new deputy leader Alan Kelly taking over from Brussels-bound Phil Hogan. It had wanted the Department of Jobs but FG was not for turning. The consolation for Labour is Gerald Nash becoming a super junior ministry at the department with focus on business and employment.
Getting Environment is, on the face of it, not a big win for the junior coalition party as its minister must now face up to angry householders who’ll be getting their first water bills in the coming months. If Hogan was unpopular among voters how will they react to Kelly?
6. Alex White gets his promotion
He was not as explicit about it as Alan Kelly but there’s no doubt the failed Labour leadership contender wanted a Cabinet spot and he’s got it. White’s move to Communications seems appropriate given his background in broadcasting but he will look to distance himself from the national broadcaster RTÉ where he was once employed to show that he is not subservient to them. Could this make life more difficult for Montrose than it was under Pat Rabbitte?
7. Heather who?
Few had heard of Heather Humphreys before today but the former backbench Cavan-Monaghan TD now sits at Cabinet as the new Arts Minister. This is a good move geographically for Fine Gael in an area where Sinn Féin is strong, and it also has the added effect of solving Kenny’s woman problem by increasing the number of women at Cabinet.
8. A meteoric rise for Donohoe
Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe has gone from backbencher to full Cabinet minister in a big department – Transport – inside a year with a spell at European Affairs along the way. The Dublin Central TD will face a battle to hold his seat in 2016, but this ministry will give him a good profile as he oversees the Luas Crosscity project in Dublin, among other things.
9. Will Rabbitte go quietly?
While you would expect Ruairí Quinn and Eamon Gilmore to keep quiet on the backbenches, Pat Rabbitte’s blatant unhappiness with being dropped from Cabinet will manifest itself in some interesting ways. It’s unlikely he will keep schtum in the months ahead given he’s already been out today hitting out at the “20-second” conversation he had with Joan Burton about losing his role.
Despite this $600bn spent on ‘defence’ annually in the USA…
@keenan, the US is the future third world.
We should build communal trailer parks and house the layabouts and scobies. If all the freeloaders houses were returned to the market it would solve a lot of problems.
Forty coats of tar and feathers for you sunshine
Anyone else think the two lads in the car look a bit scary?
The guy closest to the camera is slightly Christian Bale in the machinist…
So much for the American Dream!
As opposed to your Sinn Fein socialist paradise? Aint no dreams going to be made in that at all.
Would you prefer Fianna Fâils Wild West economics? That worked out great eh. Or the Blueshirts severe austerity and one of the worst unemployment rates in Europe. Don’t talk shit if you can’t argue an alternative.
“Blueshirts”… are you living in the 1930′s or something? Believe it or not but the Irish economy is stronger now than it has been in 8 years. Unemployment is falling rapidly and investment is rising. Let’s keep the “talk shit” policy to Sinn Fein circles
@Shane, what country are you living in. I along with others have emigrated and will never return.
Finally, Shane Sinn Feinn are not a socialist party, they are Republicans thugs masquerading as a party
dream on sheane. ya blue shirt
Jesus I thought these were photos of certain location in mullingar until I saw the caption.
should the article headline not read, “life inside a US trailer park”?
My God, the article makes these people seem like aliens and that the photographer got a lucky break to take the shots. I can imagine how annoyed these people were when they read the article. The photos are not very good either, bad composition, terrible lighting, etc. They look very unnatural and forced.
Unnatural and forced? Are we looking at the same pictures?..
Yes Paul Cadmin , I agree the pictures are terribly shot. Lighting is not on the subject and the posing of subjects is unnatural. Really poor and creates a miserable set of images.
“They took Errr Jerbs!”
Ha! If I could like this more than once I would.
Really great photography, beautifully captured. I particularly like the last one.
a price worth paying to keep the military complex going….murica fck yeah!
And you here to commit
It isn’t that bad, people in the usa spend their money differently to us, they eat out more than eat in etc & plenty of people in Ireland live in mobile homes. We have our own issues in this country without being smug and judging another one.
Do me babee one more time….
Ireland and most of Europe in 20 to 30 years time. A World that is over populated , poor, and Islamic.
Islamic? Will all the Christians, Jews, Hindus and Atheists disappear?
Muslim war will be won via higher birth rates. Not guns and bombs that’s just a side show.
Don’t look that bad
American Travellers.
Blaming the “Military Industrial Complex”. Is that the new buzz-phrase that Russell Brand has encouraged his army of trendy leftie keyboard warriors to use. You have the Che Guevara t-shirt, the Keffiyeh, and now you can have your very own simplified, yet intelligent sounding, phrase of the revolution.
Do people honestly believe that if America stopped spending money on weapons and defence that the myriad socio-economical reasons why people find themselves living in Trailer parks would be resolved? Lyndon B. Johnston attempted a “war on poverty” and invested billions in Welfare and Government Programs. And while many of those programs are good and help people, the reality is governments cannot prevent poverty.
Of course they can, and should, help the poorest, but just throwing money at the problem wont stop poverty. And using Government power (Or to use the euphemism of Leninist politicians “Workers control”) to impose “equality” has been shown, by successive failures in the Warsaw Pact nations, to be ineffective and morally wrong.
The reality is, governments should stay out of the “ending poverty” business. Instead, they should offer a minimum basic income and comprehensive voucher systems to the poor/people under the minimum basic income. They cannot simply direct an economy in any way they wish. They must allow wealth creators the freedom to create the the jobs, They must allow schools and universities to be incentivised to produce the best results. Simply put, the government should stay out of the way, only there to ensure the vulnerable do not suffer.
Great point tony. Unfortunately democracy dictates generally that the better off people dictate the health and education of the poor people. You could argue that government should just solely focus on economic and foeign policy and let the masses find their own way. Unfortunately though when a small group of elected people forget their people and focus on economic and foreign policies we end up with bazi Germany or Soviet russia.
There are also some very upmarket trailer parks filled with $200,000 motor homes and $100,000 trailers. That’s the US, there are rich and poor, just like here, and we give €700,000,000 to overseas aid for no real result.
How do you go from trailer parks to bashing overseas aid in one sentence?
Alice Cooper has kept himself in great shape
This is such a condescending insulting portrayal of life in a trailor park. Would have been better if one of the residents had taken this guys camera and turned it on him to see what clueless, sanctimonious privelage looks like. He brought a taxidermied fox?! Because trailor park trash sleep with wild animals?
Are they all inbred ?
have your say