Daniel McConnell: Simon Coveney’s gaffes could cost him as Leo looks at reshuffle

Simon Coveney

At the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting before Christmas, party leader and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar put his ministers “on notice”.

Confirming his intention to carry out a reshuffle later this year, when it is expected he will retake the Taoiseach’s office, Varadkar told his increasingly agitated troops that there will be changes in the ranks. Nothing rarely focuses the minds of ambitious politicians than reshuffles.

Those in ministries will fear the axe while those languishing on the backbenches will hope against hope for the nod to enter the higher echelons of Cabinet.

Some present that night saw Varadkar’s comments as a lazy attempt to distract from a run of poor opinion polls, insisting that after 10 years in office the Fine Gael brand has become “jaded” as one minister said to me.

Even some of the party’s top figures admit that the mishandling of the Katherine Zappone affair and now the so-called ‘Champagne-gate’ reception involving staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs shows a malaise and complacency at the top.

Some have correctly pointed out that both controversies related to Simon Coveney’s department and his own personal failure to shut them down quickly has drawn internal criticism. He was forced into several grovelling apologies over the Zappone affair and had to admit the summer had not been his finest hour in politics.

However, his stubborn silence until Wednesday of this week about whether he was or wasn’t present during the champagne reception held by his officials on the night Ireland won a seat on the United Nations Security Council, was another self-imposed own goal.

Day after day, newspapers stubbornly refused to let the matter drop and it got to the point when his own TDs were calling on him to clarify his position. As is often the case with these matters, the failure to offer a swift explanation only serves to inflame the controversy.

Coveney should have followed the example of Helen McEntee and Ciaran Cannon, then junior foreign affairs ministers, who immediately clarified their position on the matter. Even though he was in the department that night, it would have killed the matter off much sooner.

Now by digging in only to admit he thanked staff during a 10-minute period while denying he was present for any champagne reception, he has compounded the initial error. He said: “I spoke to and thanked the staff involved in the UN campaign in the UN section of Iveagh House. 

“I did not see the Covid breach from the earlier photograph and I was thanking our officials in their workplace on a workday for the work they had done on behalf of the State.

“After 10 minutes I returned to my office in Iveagh House to prepare for a call with the Norwegian foreign minister and for ongoing briefings on the coalition government negotiations.”

These sorts of self-inflicted gaffes tend to happen when you have been in government for so long. Some too have pointed to the failure of Varadkar to order Coveney to shut both controversies down before he did. 

Fine Gael's other ministers

As it stands, Coveney and Varadkar are the sole survivors of the Fine Gael team that took office under Enda Kenny in 2011. They entered Government as the young bucks of what was perhaps the most conservative administration in a generation.

Of the current Fine Gael crop of Cabinet ministers, Paschal Donohoe and Heather Humphreys were elevated to Cabinet in 2014, Simon Harris was appointed as Health Minister in 2016 and McEntee is the only first-timer taking up her post in 2020.

In the context of Varadkar’s threatened reshuffle, even those sympathetic to Coveney would concede that he has played himself into contention for demotion. Donohoe has played down speculation that he is about to abandon ship but has also been in the finance portfolios since 2017.

It is anticipated that when the big switch between Varadkar and Micheál Martin happens this December, the two finance ministers will also swap jobs. However, there is a growing school of thought that Donohoe will move elsewhere rather than return to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Humphreys did her own position no harm by stepping up and covering McEntee’s maternity leave last year and given her gender and geographical base, she looks unsackable.

The justice portfolio is also likely to switch hands as it is understood that Fianna Fáil nominated their Attorney General while Fine Gael got the ministry. This would see the impressive McEntee move, possibly to the finance gig, but she is another who is highly unlikely to face the axe.

McEntee has won many plaudits for a high degree of activity as well as some well-timed initiatives, such as the amnesty for migrants announced before Christmas.

Simon Coveney's failure to offer a swift explanation for the so-called ‘Champagne-gate’ reception only served to inflame the controversy.

Harris and Varadkar are not close, but the former health minister is one of the party’s best assets when it comes to communicating the government’s message and could be troublesome for his leader were he dropped.

Comparisons are already being made between the position Varadkar finds himself in now and the situation Bertie Ahern was in following the 2002 General Election. Fianna Fáil were seen to have reneged on their pre-election promises and were perceived as being overly cruel in how then finance minister Charlie McCreevy wielded the axe.

Ahern had a calculation to make, and he ultimately decided that the swash-buckling free marketeer McCreevy would have to make way. Off he went to his “plum job” in Europe and Ahern was immediately able to highlight his previously undisclosed socialist credentials.

Varadkar is the leader of an increasingly unpopular Fine Gael party, which is seen as largely having failed to resolve the health crisis or the housing crisis. In fact, on both fronts it stands accused of making the situation worse.

This is not unexpected having been in office for so long. Also, Varadkar himself said his preference would have been to go into opposition after the 2020 General Election to build up the party again. The decision to remain in government will certainly come at a cost to that need for renewal.

Despite some achievements in office, having been at the Cabinet table since 2011, Varadkar no longer looks like the dynamic energetic leader that became Taoiseach five years ago.

Then, he enjoyed the total loyalty of his party and his ministerial team line-up looked fresh and energetic compared to a stale-looking Fianna Fáil front bench. Like Ahern in 2004, Varadkar could look to cast Coveney aside as Ahern did with McCreevy in a bid to refresh his lethargic team.

Simon Coveney was forced into several grovelling apologies over the Zappone affair and had to admit the summer had not been his finest hour in politics. Photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

But it is not a risk-free enterprise. Even though Coveney is not a potent a threat to Varadkar as he once was, the dynamic between the two men in 2022 will be keenly watched in the context of the leader’s warning to his ministers.

In his weekly column in the Daily Mail, former minister Dermot Ahern sought to counter the narrative that Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald is a shoo-in to be Taoiseach, insisting there is life in the old Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil dogs yet. 

That may be true, but come December both dogs will be in dire need of a refresh and for Varadkar, this could mean big decisions to be made over Coveney, his long-term rival.