Shane Ross interview: 'They regarded us as a couple of guys at the cabinet table to be bypassed'

In a rare interview, Shane Ross tells Political Editor Daniel McConnell about a fractious Coalition with Fine Gael, Enda Kenny waving the Constitution in his face, Micheal Noonan as peacemaker, and the issues that may divide the Government

Without question, he has been the most controversial and talked about politician of the past year.

Shane Ross, the outspoken business editor and stockbroker turned maverick TD, led his Independent Alliance into Government.

There they have endured a turbulent relationship with the “arrogant and high handed” Fine Gael, as described by colleagues such as John Halligan.

In a rare sit-down interview, with the Irish Examiner, the Dublin-Rathdown Independent Alliance TD and Transport Minister reveals just how rocky the relations within Cabinet have become on several occasions.

“Yes, I think they regarded us as inconvenience, an add-on, and we didn’t feel that was the case, and we needed to flex our muscles early on, that this wasn’t the role we were going to play,” he says. And that this was not a Fine Gael government. It is not a Fine Gael government.

“In the initial stages, they regarded us as a couple of guys at the cabinet table to be bypassed really. But that has changed.”

One of the flashpoints early on was a disagreement over Independent TD Mick Wallace’s abortion bill. The alliance wanted a free vote but Fine Gael was refusing to consider it.

“It was the big clash of cultures,” says Mr Ross. “I thought we had sorted it all out before going into Government. The clash of cultures was Fine Gael don’t believe in a free vote, and they still don’t really like it. And we do, we regard the free vote as the default position, particularly on matters of conscience.”

Mr Ross makes it clear that the row nearly brought the Coalition down.

“We were very surprised when this blew up when it looked like Fine Gael were requiring us to vote on an issue of conscience,” he says. “So we felt we had to take a stand.

“We weren’t in the business of bringing the Government down, but it was a defining moment and we had to put down a marker. There was a stand-off for a while and of course the result was we got the free vote. But relations were very stressed for a while.”

“Since then, we have a system in place, where we now know where the free vote areas are. We think we won’t have those clashes in the future. It was partly feeling our way. The source of the clash was we believe in the free vote and they don’t.”

With relations in a poor state, it would not be long before the sides were at odds again. It came when the Government was faced with having to decide on a stance in relation to a Sinn Féin vote on Irish neutrality.

Having supported the bill at an earlier stage, Mr Ross and his colleague, minister of state for disability issues Finian McGrath, sought a free vote because, to their mind, it wasn’t a matter contained in the programme for government.

A “hard line” Enda Kenny and Fine Gael saw it differently and all hell broke loose at the Cabinet table.

Mr Ross describes how it happened: “We were kind of bounced into that one by a Sinn Féin motion. It had echoes of the Mick Wallace one because both Finian and I had voted for the bill a few months before we were in government.

“So it was a trap for us, a deliberate trap, to say you guys vote for this now you are in government.

“It was bounced into Cabinet without any pre- discussion and, without any warning, we got bounced into an argument at the Cabinet table, which was not in the programme for government, and they felt, basically, it was so fundamental that we shouldn’t move from it.

“It was another of those discussions which took a long time to resolve and it got out into the ether that Enda was waving the Constitution at me, which he was, and it was heated. But in the end, we had a considered amendment.”

Mr Ross also reveals how Finance Minister Michael Noonan has been the great peacemaker at the Cabinet table.

“Yes, Michael Noonan has been the great man who steps in when there is difficulty on certain issues between others, like when Fine Gael ministers with strong opinions and we have strong opinions and they can’t be reconciled,” he says.

“And the time to watch is when these arguments go on, and they can go on for quite some time, between ministers of the two groups, but almost inevitably Michael Noonan says, ‘come on lads, here is a solution’. And we all take some notice of him. And almost invariably when he does that we come to an agreement fairly soon afterwards.

“His style is sit back, listen to what is going on, let it play out, and say ‘come on’, and he has been very useful in that. It is fair to say he has the respect, if not the agreement, of everyone at the Cabinet table on all sides.”

Despite the pre-Christmas meeting with Mr Kenny, it seems fresh trouble is brewing for the Coalition over Mr Halligan’s desire for greater services at Waterford Regional Hospital.

Mr Ross makes it clear that either Simon Harris, the health minister, delivers what was committed to or the Coalition could be in jeopardy and set to lose one of its ministers.

“We made it absolutely clear that we were 100% behind John Halligan and we weren’t going to divert from that,” says Mr Ross.

“The resolution appears to be in the space of a mobile cath lab; that was discussed at some length and it is agreed it is taken as one of the options, fairly urgently. John was very reasonable on that and we await to see what happens.

“I think John is so committed to this, it would be unreasonable for him to continue to behave in a compliant way if he doesn’t get comfort on it. I know he has made some colourful interventions which have been regarded as very disloyal from time to time.

“But, in very difficult circumstances, he has voted with the Government.

“We are going to support John all the way. We don’t want to get into a big confrontation, but you know, we will support him all the way. He, like us, has been in Government seven months now and he wants to deliver for Waterford and the south-east and we support that.

“It is a very important part of what we stood for. We are not going to let him down.”

Mr Ross, as the de facto head of the alliance, has come in for constant criticism from many quarters — one political correspondent gave him a poll rating of zero. Does it affect him?

He rejects such criticism strongly, describing it as “frankly ridiculous”.

“I have never seen any justification or evidence for it,” he says. “They usually say: ‘He is not doing his job.’ Mainly it is because I am involved in other portfolios.

“It is always accompanied with ‘get out of interfering with the judges and get back to transport’. That is frankly ridiculous because I was elected on an Independent Alliance programme to implement things all over the place.”