Cavalier Reilly squandering Coalition credit

For a man already named and shamed as a debtor, Health Minister James Reilly seems remarkably cavalier about squandering whatever political Coalition credit he has left.

To humiliate Labour once over health policy might appear careless (it wasn’t: it was deliberate), but to do so twice — and barely a month later — reeks of utter contempt for the junior Government party.

But is that really what happened this time around? The Coalition is now so riven with distrust and dysfunction that conflicting narratives compete for attention.

Yes, Reilly kept the Tánaiste and his junior Labour health ministers in the dark about the shock resignation of HSE boss Cathal Magee. But some Fine Gaelers claim Brendan Howlin’s department was in the loop over the €130m proposed health cuts — including the lightning strike €30m attack on frontline services — that has sparked loose talk of a snap general election.

Howlin’s people insist the contact was at the level of officials and the minister had no idea of the details until they were announced. Labour was unable to say last night if its junior health ministers were pre-briefed by HSE officials about the cuts — as FG sources claim — or not.

However, it is telling that a spokesperson for the Taoiseach refused to say whether FG ministers had been told of the incendiary cuts before their sloppy announcement last week.

All in all, the mess reveals a Coalition staggering out of the summer break in just the same manner it crashed into it — in chaos.

Talk within Labour of a crisis election is both petulant and preposterous as the party knows the ensuing voter backlash would see it lucky to hold half its present 35 seats, while Fine Gael would probably do rather well.

The harsh reality is that Labour has allowed itself to be locked into a Tory-led coalition of cuts for the foreseeable future, and the outrage over the threatened clawback of cash from home helps will be as nothing compared with yet another Budget From Hell looming in December when a further €3.6bn shortfall in public finances must be dealt with. Labour really needs to up its game if it is to avoid yet more of the blame.

Labour health minister Roisín Shortall’s refusal to express confidence in her boss Dr Reilly in the wake of the Magee fiasco laid bare the fact there was something rotten at the heart of health policy, and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s display of public annoyance after having to hear of the major HSE shake-up from the media only added to the air of dysfunction.

The fact the incident occurred just a week after Gilmore had given unnecessarily unequivocal backing to Reilly, after the health minister was exposed in The Stubbs Gazette as a debtor and had not complied with a High Court order, made Labour look all the more foolish.

Comparisons were made with the poor old Greens who endlessly backed tarnished Fianna Fáil ministers and still got precious little of their agenda through a Cabinet contemptuous of them.

It would seem Labour now wants passive-aggressive revenge on Reilly. His combative, haughty personality, has given them more than enough of a target to aim at as they blame him, and him alone, for the frontline cuts.

But, if it is true that Reilly has been up to his old tricks and playing fast and loose behind their backs again, why did they let him?

It is hardly as if this slow motion train-wreck of a potential HSE overspend of €500bn at year’s end has not been sliding down the tracks towards them since last winter.

Indeed, correspondence shows Magee’s increasing frustration at Reilly’s failure to get a grip on the situation. This resulted in Howlin writing to the health minister in May demanding action.

Reilly’s response — as it was during this weekend’s turf war — was to mutter darkly about the constraints of the Croke Park deal and its protection of public sector pay.

Because whatever the battle on the surface — the Coalition war underneath is invariably about Croke Park.

Today’s Cabinet meeting is set to stand over the cuts and concentrate on the crisis in communications — but most expect a climbdown within weeks.

Reilly has proved himself to be something a rolling disaster zone when it comes to health announcements, but yet Enda Kenny will be loathe to let him go.

After a decade-long whispering campaign against Mr Kenny’s leadership ended in a very nearly successful coup, the Taoiseach has developed a Shakespearean flaw in his character — he is swayed by loyalty, not competence.

Mr Kenny needs Reilly to remain as his deputy leader, and de-facto human shield against further heaves.

That is why he will not move the highly divisive Reilly; that is why Reilly is in the Taoiseach’s debt.

Which must make it the one public debt the increasingly isolated Reilly is glad of having.