Fennelly: Rare insight into how power is routinely administered

Only for the extraordinary consequences of ensuing events, we would never have been any wiser, writes Gerard Howlin

The most important thing about life on top of the pile, is not how important you are, it’s how dependent you are. The bigger the pile, the greater the dependence.

What the Fennelly report into the retirement of former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan brings home is how powerful but, how dependent a Taoiseach, or indeed any minister is.