Bertie’s DIY project is to make a new cabinet out of a right shower

DEAR Taoiseach, I know, I know, the last person you’d want advice from is me.

But I’ve been worried about you. The media is reporting that you’re down there in Kerry, supposed to be on your hols, but actually fretting about the cabinet re-shuffle.

You’ve been there before, and it isn’t easy trying to do the right thing.

Remember that night in 1994, when you were on the verge of forming a government with Dick Spring, and it all fell apart at the last minute? The cameras caught you that night driving out of Government Buildings looking completely bemused and holding a piece of paper on your lap. That note was the cabinet that never was, the list you were never able to implement. Although you’d have to blow up the photo to see the list properly, it looked suspiciously as if Ray Burke’s name was right up there on top (as indeed it was two years later when you actually did get to form your first cabinet).

Maybe it was just as well for all of us that you never got to appoint a government that night! But because I was there too, I know how difficult it can be to make the choices confronting you now. So, in a spirit of helpfulness and, of course, in the national interest (because surely this country needs a government it can believe in again), here are a few suggestions.

First of all, don’t pay any attention to Michael Smith. You know as well as I do there’s nothing behind the macho posturing he’s been going on with. He might be trying to create the impression that he’d be a troublesome backbencher if he was dropped, but you know that his capacity to stir up a revolt within the party is no greater than mine - and that’s saying something!

If he was trying to play tough to persuade you to ditch Rory O’Hanlon and make him Ceann Chomhairle, show him you’re tougher, and make him a backbencher again. Letting Michael Smith win a second battle like this would be seen throughout your own outfit as a fatal sign of weakness. You’d lose all their respect immediately.

Secondly, we all know you want Brian Cowen, the favourite son, in Finance.

But think about it.

For him it’d be a bit like taking over the Late Late from Gaybo, wouldn’t it? Remember all the bad press Pat Kenny got, and how he had to really battle to prove himself in the slot? He got there in the end, but it took years off him. Brian Cowen would suffer the same fate.

Because here’s the thing, and you know this better than most. Charlie McCreevy suited the mandarins in Finance very well, because he shared their obsession with cutting back on public spending. They gave him whatever he wanted in tax cuts (even the really indefensible ones) because he never asked for much on the spending side.

When ye all decided to let rip on spending, in the run-up to the last election, they let him get away with it only because they calculated you were going to be re-elected. And there’s nobody better, as you know, than the senior civil service for sniffing that wind. They’ll always respond better to a government they figure is going to be around for a while.

But if Brian tries the old trick of loosening the purse strings, it won’t work this time. The people can see it coming, and they won’t believe a word of it. But the word throughout the civil service right now is that the current Government is doomed. It might be hard to accept, but there it is. And so, they’ll resist all the tricks this time. They have a God-given vocation to protect the public purse, and I can promise you that within a few months the same backbenchers who were dying to see the back of Charlie will be giving out yards about Brian. Charlie mightn’t know it yet, but he got out in the nick of time.

No, if you think about it, you’ll be doing Brian’s reputation no good by sticking him into Finance.

Maybe the job ought to go to someone who needs taking down a peg or two. Is it absolutely certain that the Minister for Injustice, Inequality and Promises of Law Reform has to stay where he is? You know he’d be thrilled with Finance, and it wouldn’t do you any harm to watch him make a hames of it. He could even be the scapegoat for the next election.

I guess you probably won’t do that, because the backbenchers wouldn’t understand. They’d think he was being promoted, whereas you’d know he was being set up but wouldn’t be able to say so.

So it will probably be poor old Brian who’ll get the gig.

And then what?

YOU’VE always found it hard of get rid of people, even long after their sell-by dates. And more than a few of your lot need putting in the bin.

Could Martin Cullen have made a bigger mess of electronic voting? How is it possible for someone to spend as much money as Micheál Martin has and still make the queues longer and longer? Noel Dempsey makes a speech about disadvantage in education once a week, and is presiding over a growing literacy problem, apart from all the other cock-ups (of course, with the possibility of a by-election in Meath looming ever larger, I guess you’re going to have to put up with him). Mary Coughlan’s entirely unnecessary and gratuitous cutbacks were one of the reasons you were so badly hammered in the local elections.

It’s not exactly a cabinet of all the talents, is it?

And you know, of course, that one of the reasons Aer Lingus decided to offer exactly the redundancy terms the unions were looking for, even before the negotiations began, was because of the rumour that Mary Harney was looking for Transport. The thought that the most anti-public sector member of the Government was going to be let loose to wage war was enough to frighten the senior management of Aer Lingus into submission.

So it’s clear enough that you have to make changes, and radical ones. But it was when I began thinking about the new talent at your disposal that I finally realised what has you chewing your pencil into the late hours.

You’re right, Taoiseach. I wouldn’t want to be standing up in front of the Dáil at the end of September announcing that I had promoted Willie O’Dea into Social and Family Affairs or Dick Roche into Health or (sweet Holy God) Ivor Callely into Communications.

But they’re all expecting it, Taoiseach. Michael Smith may be a spent force, but if you overlook those lads, all hell is likely to break loose.

Try telling them they’re an electoral liability in national terms, and that what you need is a government that looks fresh, not one that looks even more arrogant than the present bunch.

I have to tell you, Taoiseach, I don’t envy you. Maybe you should stay in Kerry, because the way I see it, it’s all downhill from here.

Best wishes,

Fergus.