Fergus Finlay: Here’s my advice to new ministers on how to be successful in the job

Harris has promised a new energy, and that’s a good thing. But focus, clear priorities, and really good time management — they deliver results

Incoming Taoiseach Simon Harris at the 82nd Fine Gael Ard Fheis at the University of Galway. Picture: Dan Linehan

I was asked on a Sunday panel discussion what advice I’d give Simon Harris about a Cabinet reshuffle (in the highly unlikely event that I was asked for advice, of course). Stability, I said. Seriousness and focus. Our genial and erudite host Philip Boucher Hayes immediately affected a big yawn. Same old same old, he said. Where’s the energy and excitement in that? Isn’t that what Simon Harris is promising us after all?

Now, of course, by teatime this evening, when the news comes on, you might discover that I’m entirely wrong and that our new Taoiseach has decided to shuffle the deck in some hugely unpredictable way. If he does, he’s got it wrong. Of course, there are jobs that have to be filled — his own and Simon Coveney’s — but if he appoints a lot of inexperienced people to the Cabinet, less than a year before the next election, they are really going to struggle to deliver anything.