Elaine Loughlin: Martin shows more ruthless side than Harris but overall, Cabinet is 'very male'
President Michael D Higgins and the new Cabinet at Áras an Uachtaráin. Picture: Maxwells
With a raft of surprise appointments and demotions, Micheál Martin has made Simon Harris' ministerial choices seem boring.
In choosing his picks for Cabinet, Micheál Martin blindsided political journalists and many within his own party with his selection of department positions, shredding up columns of informed speculation across print and online.
Hands up among the political media corps, we all got it very wrong, but so too did our reliable sources.
In contrast, the Harris side of Cabinet had been widely briefed in advance of the official appointments, which flattened the tone and took the fizz of expectation out of it.
It shows that Martin, despite being at the helm of Fianna Fáil for 14 years, still knows how to keep his party on its toes.
As rank-and-file TDs made their way up the grand stairs that lead to the Dáil chamber, their jaws almost had to be lifted off the carpeted steps.
Sitting directly behind Martin, Mary Butler, the new chief whip, couldn't contain her delight as she beamed up at her daughter Jane, who sat in the public gallery, patting away tears of joy or perhaps shock, maybe both.
But there have also been disappointments within Fianna Fáil, pointing to a ruthlessness in Martin that Harris did not show in his decisions, at least this time around.
Now former agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue, who not only defied some expectations in keeping his seat in Donegal but who also saw running mate Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher return with him, looked dejected after being deselected from Cabinet.
Others who had been talked up, including Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan, Cavan representative Niamh Smyth, and Clare poll-topper Timmy Dooley, were left on the backbenches, but may be selected among the junior appointments.
One of the biggest surprises was the removal of Darragh O'Brien out of the Department of Housing and into Climate, Environment, Energy and Transport.
The change came just a few hours after the CSO released its latest data, which revealed that just 30,330 homes were completed in 2024. This was a fall on the total completions in 2023 and was almost 10,000 short of the target that the Government had set.
It leaves the new Housing Minister James Browne with an uphill battle to deliver on the promise of an average of 60,000 houses each year across the lifetime of this Government and will be a significant step up from his previous role as a junior minister in the Department of Justice.
Martin has long been criticised for keeping a tight circle of mainly unelected but highly trusted officials as council around him, with ministers and backbenchers in the previous government venting frustration that they had been effectively locked out of the real decision making.
This time around it has largely worked to his advantage. But while he kept two steps ahead of everyone when it came to his selections, Martin missed his footing on one important element.
Just three women — Helen McEntee, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and Norma Foley — have been appointed as senior ministers, with Butler and Hildegard Naughton selected as super juniors.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik pointed out that there are now as many men called James as there are women in Cabinet.
Standing up in the Dáil, Mary Lou McDonald set aside her political title and said that as a woman it was "depressing" that "we see the absence of us".
Afterwards backbench Government TDs refused to agree with McDonald that the Cabinet selection was stale, but conceded that the Sinn Féin leader was right in describing it as very male.
"The women thing is a bit of an issue," one male representative admitted when asked about the appointments.
The Women for Election group dubbed it a shocking and disappointing affront to gender equality, pointing out that the 25% female representation from the previous Cabinet has not even been retained.
"It is hard to believe this wasn't knowingly done. They must know the optics and the impact of this decision," said Women for Election chief executive Brian Sheehan.
Martin will have the opportunity to somewhat even out the numbers when appointing the more junior-ranking ministers of State next week.
But after a tumultuous and chaotic two days, which saw unprecedented shenanigans, numerous Dáil adjournments, and riotous exchanges, he will simply be relieved to finally return to the office of An Taoiseach, even if his first moves have not been without criticism.
