European policy is not a foreign affair — it’s a prime ministerial function

PATRICK Honohan is the new Michael O’Leary.

You know the way people who have neither met nor worked for the Ryanair boss nonetheless want him to be put in charge of everything? Same with Patrick Honohan. Professor Popularity, he is, despite not having a plaid shirt to his name.

Patrick Honohan is also the new Sean FitzPatrick. Remember when FitzPatrick was the favourite banker on radio programmes, telling us how to achieve the great future he just knew we had ahead of us? Honohan is selective about his media appearances. But if he feels the longing to go on Morning Ireland, you just know they’ll clear the decks to make room at the microphone for him, no matter what other eminencies were booked for the programme, because, no matter which way you slice him, he’s the go-to guy.

Carrie Fisher once remarked that she didn’t have enough personality for two people, but had way too much for one.

Similarly, Honohan has way too much perceived integrity for any one man to carry without buckling at the knees.

The commentariat decided, a while back, that he was honest, clever, expert and an all-round good egg. On one of yesterday’s chat shows, when they got around to criticising the recent performance of the Department of Finance, someone opined that the new minister should do a purge of the guys at the top in that department, and replace them with Honohan.

While yielding to nobody in admiration for the good professor, the fact is that this tendency to alternately demonise and deify individuals does us no good at all. The fact that someone is super in one role doesn’t mean they’ll be excellent in another. In addition, once we focus on a handful of individuals as the solution to every problem, we tend to ignore the fact that not even the most brilliant individual can be effective when they have to operate within a flawed or outdated structure.

The incoming Government has indicated that it plans to break the Department of Finance effectively into two, with a chunk of operational issues, including public service reform, moving out of the responsibilities of the Minister for Finance.

It would greatly refresh the entire administration if some other departments were reconfigured. For example, the issue of Transport sitting separately from the Department of the Environment and Local Government, when transport is crucially both an environmental and a local government issue, doesn’t make much sense.

Nor does it make sense to bundle Children into the Department of Health. Children don’t have education or justice issues?

Before the Programme for Government was put to the Labour Party vote yesterday, Brendan Howlin, on radio, talked about rebuilding bridges with our European partners, sliding skilfully around a question about “Frankfurt’s way or Labour’s way” to stress the need for Ireland to get its relationship with the European Community right.

One of the structural steps the new Government could take to ensure precisely that would be to move responsibility for EU Affairs from the Department of Foreign Affairs, where it now sits, into the Taoiseach’s Department. The most effective of our European partner states regard the development of European policy as a prime ministerial function. Whether it’s the German Chancellor’s office or David Cameron’s unit in Downing Street, this is manifest.

It’s also underlined by how frequently we see Angela Merkel at crucial EU meetings and how clearly she demonstrates resolute ownership of her country’s European policy direction.

The Department of Foreign Affairs as a home for EU matters, which may be historic, gives an exotic foreign cast to our membership of the European Project. When Europe is an integral part of domestic legislation and policymaking, having it still handled as if it is a foreign policy issue is daft.

If EU relations were moved into the Taoiseach’s Department, it would have a number of obvious advantages. Right now, the overwhelming emphasis in our dealings with Europe is on matters financial. Ergo, sticking EU Affairs into Enda Kenny’s own department would mean that the new Economic Council, made up, it is suggested, of Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service, would logically be across it, served, perhaps, by a Super Junior.

It may have been a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach who signed us up for the (then) European Economic Community, but Enda Kenny’s party has a particular grá for Europe and comfort in dealing with the EU.

Direct oversight would allow Kenny to move Ireland up into the ranks of the more effective national administrations across Europe, which set national European policy priorities, influence their preparation in the Commission, prepare the ground in the national parliament, direct the line for their own national MEPs, and permanently network with coalitions of like-minded member states across Europe and in Brussels.

Once we get out of our current financial embarrassments, it will be interesting to see if we can become a really effective member state such, for example, as Finland, where European policy development is led by the prime minister, and where European policy is clear and explicit.

BUT that’s not the only area in which our relationship with Europe needs to be refreshed and strengthened. Government departments should be staffed at the highest level by people who have had the experience of working within European and where relevant, global institutions (IMF, World Bank).

This can be done through secondments, training and transfers. Some member states rotate officials between the EU and national administrations at senior level to provide a flow of expert advice to their own governments. Some prefer to staff their permanent representations in Brussels, not by career diplomats but by those who have worked inside the EU institutions.

The Irish phonebook in Brussels is dying out. Ireland has no plan for ensuring an adequate level of staffing within the EU institutions. As a generation of highly successful Irish officials in the European institutions reaches retirement, a gap is emerging in terms of the Irish network, notably across the Commission. Ireland is not going to fill that gap, given that the EU now has 27 member states, without resolute coherent action, such as a planned programme for Irish people to work temporarily and permanently in the EU institutions.

The quality of the links between the Department of Finance and the Taoiseach’s Department on the one hand, and the Eurozone/Ecofin Council and European Council on the other should be constantly upgraded.

EU issues and networks are no longer the exotic foreign affairs they once were. We’re all grown up, as a member state.

That should be matched by the structures around our EU relations. And please don’t anybody suggest putting Patrick Honohan across them.