History may look kindly on Hogan despite controversy over Irish Water

PROPERTY, water charges, a reduction in the number of local authorities, a wholesale redistribution of county council seats to more populated areas: these were things spoken of for decades. They are now being delivered, albeit amidst considerable furore.

They all come at a political price, of course. Some of that cost will be paid in the currency of lost council seats by the government party’s on May 23. Whatever the political price, some also entail a cost to families which is largely resented. But like-it-or-lump-it, cumulatively it is all a seismic shift in local government and national taxation policy. Unlike other areas of policy, it amounts to a crisis that has conspicuously not been wasted.

Little of this is likely to have been attempted except for dire necessity. The presence until Dec 15 of, and pressure from, the troika concentrated minds. Be that as it may it leaves Environment Minster Phil Hogan with a substantive record of reform nearly unique in scope, at the cabinet table. Only Alan Shatter stands out as another minister with a perhaps greater record of substantive policy reform. The fact that both are widely unpopular, and in Hogan’s case, especially derided by the commenting classes makes singling him out as a champion of reform counter-intuitive.