Kenny administration is conservative, old and predominantly male
These 15 Wasps do not reflect the appetite for wholesale change demanded by voters when 74 new deputies were elected from a younger and more diverse demographic.
Instead, Mr Kenny’s and Eamon Gilmore’s selections appear to be a reward for those who walked the hard yards for their respective parties during times of Fianna Fáil dominance.
On average, each minister has served 20 years in the Dáil. The two doctors, James Reilly and Leo Varadkar, are the only nominees promoted after just one term in the Oireachtas.
The medium age is 56, compared with 48 for the wider Dáil. Although this is still younger than the outgoing Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition.
Ten of the group are effectively career politicians, having entered the Oireachtas when they were under the age of 35 and returned at intervals ever since.
There are just two women. Neither of whom was given one of the more powerful portfolios. Frances Fitzgerald is the new Minister for Children and Joan Burton is the Minister for Social Protection.
Mr Gilmore told the Dáil the identities of the cabinet represented a “break with the past and fundamentally changed Irish politics”.
The CVs of those involved suggest otherwise. Ten of the nominees held office in previous administrations, notably the Rainbow Coalition, as ministers or ministers of state.
The training and education backgrounds are also in keeping with political traditions.
The team contains five long-elected teachers, three lawyers, an economist, an accountant, an architect, an agricultural scientist, a trade union official and a social worker trained at the London School of Economics.
This is a swarm well used to the corridors of Leinster House and will take little time to acclimatise to their respective departments.
The only member who was not in the 30th Dáil, Ms Fitzgerald, was twice a TD and the outgoing leader of the opposition in the Seanad.
The choices are not surprising for a Taoiseach who has worked on Kildare Street longer than any other TD.
However, his desire to build his new Government on experience has led to a geographical imbalance.
Nine of the new cabinet were elected from Dublin constituencies with just one, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, coming from west of the Shannon.
Brian Cowen’s final full cabinet had nine members from outside Dublin and three from west of the Shannon. Only Mr Kenny, Brendan Howlin, Phil Hogan, Willie Penrose and Jimmy Deenihan can be considered rural TDs.
Swathes of the country will be without a seat at cabinet. There is no minister resident in the commuter counties of Louth, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow.
The north west — Donegal, Sligo, Roscommon and Leitrim — has also been overlooked.
This irked Mr Kenny’s Mayo colleague, Michael Ring, who believed a minister was needed for the western seaboard.
On the Fine Gael end, Mr Kenny substituted the potential for surprises in personnel with a dramatic re-branding of the departments they serve in.
He has cut down Defence as a stand alone entity and sent it to the now sprawling Department of Justice. Decisions for the gardaí, the courts service and army will now arrive on Alan Shatter’s desk.
Transport has been given the tourism brief, in an attempt to redirect airport policy to attract more visitors, but oddly sport has also fallen within its jurisdiction.
Mr Kenny also created a full senior ministry for children — after Arts and Community/Gaeltacht Affairs were stripped of departmental status.
Unlike his immediate predecessors Mr Kenny did not offer specific rationale in his nominations’ speech for the carve-up of the departments or the logic underpinning his new portfolios.
But he asked the public to trust him.
“The next chapter of our history requires a leap of faith. One we must take together,” he said.
Mr Kenny stayed true to his promise not to exact revenge for last year’s mutiny by his frontbench.
Richard Bruton was given back his old Department of Enterprise. Leo Varadkar was forgiven enough to assume responsibility for the reformed Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.
And Mr Kenny kept some interest groups happy.
Farmers were given the man they wanted, Simon Coveney. He is the new Minister for Agriculture, reflecting the overwhelming opinion expressed in a pre-election Farmers’ Journal poll on ministerial preferences.
Elsewhere, the former president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr James Reilly, is the Minister for Health.
Eamon Gilmore was responsible for the day’s big surprises and he upset some of his most senior allies in picking five colleagues to join him in cabinet.
He effectively demoted Joan Burton from her former brief as finance spokesperson to take control of the Department of Social Protection.
Roisín Shortall was overlooked, despite delivering a second seat in her constituency. In contrast, Willie Penrose was given a super junior post having topped the poll in Longford Westmeath four times but having never brought home a running mate.
Brendan Howlin, who took a step back in the last Dáil to sit as Leas Ceann Comhairle, was given the highest profile Labour Party post — the public service spending side of the Department of Finance.
And Ruairí Quinn defied speculation that he was to be bypassed and returned to cabinet 29 years after he was first appointed a minister of state.
The Taoiseach stayed conservative in his first cabinet and clipped the wings of some of his more eager young deputies.
Instead he opted to see if he could squeeze any last stings out of his old Wasps.
