World of Politics with Harry McGee

The first Minister I ever recall meeting was Tom O’Donnell, a Limerick TD, who was Minister for the Gaeltacht. He came into our classroom in the Jes when we were very young, spoke a few sentences to us in Irish, and then departed. But not without getting the teacher to let us off homework. Maybe that’s why I remember him.

The thing about O’Donnell that I learned only years afterwards was that he was deaf, so it was a good achievement for him, a non-Gaeltacht man to boot, to have learned Irish to such an extent.

How many hundreds of ministers have there been in Ireland since the foundation of the State and how many have been remembered by succeeding generations for having left their mark.

Sean Lemass, first as Minister for Enterprise, was remembered for opening up Ireland‘s industrial base to foreign investment, after decades of a closed economy. Donagh O’Malley was remembered for introducing free education.

Charles Haughey was considered to have been a very effective minister, first in Justice, and then in Finance where he introduced free travel for pensioners, the artists’ tax exemption, and changed the Succession Act to ensure that women could inherit farms and homes.

Noel Browne, as Minister for Health, was responsible for having all the isolation hospitals built to help people with tuberculosis, and that included Merlin Park. Dick Spring was a very distinguished Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was a driving force behind the initiative that eventually led to the Good Friday agreement.

Mícheál Martin was the Minister who introduced the smoking ban. During the time Michael Noonan was Minister for Finance, he was the person who ensured that the country was taken out of the clutches of the Troika, and had its sovereignty restored. All of those ministers were driven to one extent or another.

In contrast there have been plenty of poor ministers, dozens and dozens of anonymous ministers, and many who were efficient but hardly visionary.

And I’m only talking about the senior Ministers here.

Mary Harney was very effective when she was junior minister in the Department of the Environment. Pádraig Flynn – an rógaire – was the senior minister in that Department at the time. She was in many ways more effective than him. It was her who really introduced the concept of thinking about the environment first. She implemented the first ban on smoky coal.

Pictured: Noel Grealish…seat at the Cabinet table after 23 years as an Independent backbencher. Photo: Brian Harding.