Rowing in

Despite John O’Donoghue’s successes in both his ministries, he still remains first and foremost a Kerry TD, writes Political Editor Harry McGee.

THE full titles of Government departments today tend to be a bit of a mouthful. John O'Donoghue's two ministries have been no exception.

First of all he was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Now, he's Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism. Sometimes you wish they'd simplify them a bit. If they did, they could come up with a concise job description for O'Donoghue that would neatly encompass all of his seven years at Cabinet Minister for Kerry.

Today's disclosure in the Irish Examiner in relation to the awarding of a grant to a rowing club in Killorglin is another example of John O'Donoghue's brilliance at being a Minister first but the Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for South Kerry foremost.

One of the obvious perks of being a Minister is the power to make decisions, appointments and announcements that happen to benefit your own constituency. You would be hard-pressed to find one rural-based Government minister since the foundation of the State who hasn't orchestrated a coup for his or her own patch (and who has milked the attendant publicity for all it is worth). To resist t would be an act of political kamikaze.

The current crop is no exception when it comes to pulling on the county jersey. The locations of informal EU Ministers meetings in Ireland were strategically chosen because, ahem, that's where the Minister came from. And if you look at Charlie McCreevy's decentralisation programme, you can't help but being struck that so many of the chosen locations just happen to be in the same neck of the woods as the Minister.

Of course, there's a long tradition of clientelism in Irish politics.

The most celebrated stroke was that pulled back in 1956 by Patrick Lindsay, the distinguished barrister who was then a Fine Gael TD in Mayo. The equivalent of a junior minister, Lindsay was responsible for redrawing the Gaeltacht boundaries. At a stroke, he designated as Irish-speaking a whole stretch of his county where the native tongue had more or less given up the ghost a generation before.

Since 1997, John O'Donoghue hasn't kept his eye off the ball as far as county (Kerry), club (South Kerry), and parish (Cahirciveen) is concerned. A powerful motive for that may have been the presence in the constituency of a rival Santa Claus, Jackie Healy-Rae. As one of the four independent TDs who propped up the FF-PD Coalition in 1997, Healy-Rae got commitments from the Government on a shopping list of projects for South Kerry. More importantly and cutely, he got the right to learn of approval at the same time as O'Donoghue.

Whenever something good for the Kingdom got the go-ahead from Cabinet or from a Department, the two TDs would be involved in an unseemly dash to become the first to be the bearer of good news to the constituency.

Though Healy-Rae's influence has waned since 2002, an example of that five-year battle for local supremacy reared its head last month at the announcement of a €7 million development at Cromane Pier in Killorglin.

Healy-Rae claimed that he had been "cut out" of the announcement by John O'Donoghue's people despite the Kilgarvan TD's claim that he was "totally and absolutely responsible" for getting it off the ground.

If you parse through the grants, announcements and appointments made by Ministers, you will always find a distinct bias in favour of their local constituency. O'Donoghue has nevertheless being an impressive performer in both his Ministries.

In 1998, the year after he became Minister for Justice, O'Donoghue announced he was decentralising the Legal Aid Board. Its new location was to be Cahirciveen, which happens to be his home town. Forty people were transferred at a cost of €5 million. O'Donoghue wasn't the only minister to transfer departmental offices to his home constituency.

Minister for Defence Michael Smith transferred the Civil Defence headquarters to Roscrea and then Marine Minister Frank Fahey moved the Marine Institute to Galway. But O'Donoghue's decision stood out.

He invited more controversy with his appointments to prison visiting committees. In 1999, 14, or a quarter, of all the appointments he made to prison visiting committees were from Kerry. The following year, he appointed a further seven from Kerry, but this was out of a total of 117.

For Kerry Fianna Fáil councillors, the benefits were obvious. Appointments to such faraway penal institutions as Loughan House in Cavan and the Curragh Detention Centre meant round trips of over 350 miles and generous expenses.

The Minister justified his appointments in the Dáil in the following terms: "The composition of visiting committees are drawn from a wide geographical area in order to help to ensure that the diverse needs of prisoners are understood and met. This is a long-standing practice used by successive Ministers."

As Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, O'Donoghue has ensured that Kerry has not been ignored. Under McCreevy's decentralisation programme, his own department and the Sports Council will be transferred to Killarney in the heartland of his own constituency. In all, 165 civil servants will move, and O'Donoghue told Radio Kerry that he himself would oversee the project. That said, it must be acknowledged that there's a logic to moving the department responsible for tourism to the main tourist centre of the country.

Appointments to boards within his area of responsibility have all included a smattering of Kerry people, though each are distinguished in their areas of expertise and their suitability could not be quibbled with. They included Kerry residents, Noelle Campbell-Sharpe and Philip King to the Arts Council, Pauline Bewick to the board of the National Gallery, and Killarney hotelier Patrick O'Donoghue to the board of Tourism Ireland.

However, another appointment to Tourism Ireland raised a few eyebrows. Legendary Kerry football figure Páidi Ó Sé is a well-known publican but some cynics viewed his nomination as a bit of publicity stunting by the Minister.

And the constituency has done well on the grants front. Kerry received almost €3 million of the total of €50 million in sports grants from the proceeds of the National Lottery. The Minister also ensured that FF TDs in each constituency received the details about the grants at 8am on the day they were announced, to allow them get maximum coverage for the good news in the local media.

The Killarney Summerfest has also done well under this Minister's watch, receiving €350,000 last year and €250,000 this year. Another festival in the town, the Killarney 250, has received a grant of €84,500 this year.

And Cahirciveen? Well, the town has done very well since 1997. It will receive a new €3.5 million marina, has approval for a €7 million secondary school and has got a new library. It has also got a new church organ, which should be programmed to play 'Ode to Joy' when the town's most famous politician arrives home for the weekend.