I am so behind the times I’d not even looked at the new Irish cabinet line-up yet, but Eimear ni Mhealoid asks for thoughts in a comment on the post welcoming Niamh to CT.
Here is the new line-up, and some commentary is here. CT commenter Eimear quotes Olivia O’Leary pungently describing as “a Dáil bar cabinet – the boys have divided up the major portfolios and left the girls with the housekeeping and nanny jobs“.
Oh dear. How depressing. Is Frances Fitzgerald truly the only woman front bencher Fine Gael can field? And in the pink ghetto of Minister for Children… How utterly pathetic. (That said, I’m glad the appallingly reactionary Lucinda Creighton has not been given any encouragement.) There’s clearly been a lot more thought given to political rewards – fair enough, though sad to see real new talent ignored for supporting Richard Bruton – and to geographic spread (at least within FG) than gender balance. Why it’s thought more important to have people from every province than from half the population is beyond me.
What a pity to see cranky old limpet Michael Noonan in Finance – the Dept. of Health bossed him around like nobody’s business last time round. Though frankly I’m still sad it’s not Richard Bruton, who brought a moral and intellectual conviction to shadow Finance before his unsuccessful leadership heave against Enda Kenny. For all his loyalty and bluster, Noonan’s economic and financial vision for Ireland’s path forward is, shall we say, tactical rather than strategic. Finance will run rings around him. Kenny would have done far better for Ireland to put his own considerations aside and appoint a Finance minister who can articulate and prosecute the arguments and policy for the way forward, both at home and abroad.
Labour looks overall to have more depth of talent than FG, though it’s odd that they’re all pretty old and from within spitting distance of Dublin. Appointing a (Labour) woman as Attorney General looks tokenist and removes from FG a potential career stepping stone for future ministers for Justice.
I’m glad to see Simon Coveney rewarded with a decent ministry – agriculture, food & fisheries – that he can get his teeth into. A fair exchange for the enormous pressure put on him a few years ago to ditch his promising European Parliament career to keep his seat in FG hands.
Women are always told to wait for ‘next time’, but in Ireland the next time has a funny way of never happening. There are always more pressing concerns. This cabinet has only one more woman than FG/Labour’s previous coalitions in the 1980s. The only consolation is that so many people outside Ireland think Enda Kenny is a woman.
{ 29 comments }
Niall McAuley 03.10.11 at 2:42 pm
a) Eimear’s comment was actually on the New Crooked Timber Blogger thread
b) NYT Taoiseach Sex Mix-up Shock!
c) NÃl aon c) ann.
Hektor Bim 03.10.11 at 2:44 pm
Are they still going forward with their plan to gently drive the Irish language to extinction?
Niall McAuley 03.10.11 at 2:50 pm
Let’s see,
We will support the 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 and will deliver on the achievable goals and targets proposed.
blah blah blah
etc.
etc.
Aha!
When these steps have been implemented, we will consider the question of whether Irish should be optional at Leaving Certificate.
I’ll take that as a no.
Daragh McDowell 03.10.11 at 3:03 pm
Its a pretty ‘safe pair of hands’ cabinet, that has more or less admitted from the start that its not going to be able to do anything radically different for the next 2-3 years, and probably beyond that. Labour’s problem is that its parliamentary party has been pretty static since the receding of the Spring Tide in 1997. Except for three ‘young uns’ from the last time around its parliamentary party is almost half new faces, and Gilmore is not a big risk taker. Rabitte, Quinn and Burton along with Gilmore took an immediate 4 out of 5 cabinet seats, but they would have been better promoting someone like Sherlock to the fifth. It seems that they’re going to focus on deepening the bench through the junior ministries. However the shafting of Burton out of the ‘new’ finance ministry seems to be a rather cowardly move based on her lacklustre media profile (getting into a massive fight with Vincent Browne and Joe Higgins on the eve of the election being called wasn’t smart either.)
The FG side is pretty depressing. Kenny has been deified to the heights for essentially priming a political machine that went on to win big under extremely favourable circumstances, but if viewed critically had the potential to do so much more under a leader with minimal competence in communication and setting out a basic vision for the country, something we need desperately but are sorely lacking. The real question was always what seats he’d be forced to hand over to the rebels and how grudgingly. He’s done the minimum with Coveney, Varadkar and Bruton while the rest of the FG side seems to be minimally talented loyalists like Reilly and Shatter who will stick to their briefs like limpets.
Of course the big question is renegotiating and entering a structured default on our debt, which neither Kenny nor Gilmore have shown any appetite for, preferring a ‘nibble around the edges’ policy of seeking an interest rate reduction which is peanuts in the long run. So expect this government to get very unpopular very fast, and a number of post-mortems by the Labour party on how they missed their historic opportunity to become the main opposition party.
Paddy Matthews 03.10.11 at 3:17 pm
(That said, I’m glad the appallingly reactionary Lucinda Creighton has not been given any encouragement.)
She’s been appointed as Minister for European Affairs, in succession to Dick
“Cock”Roche (who may not have been reactionary but was certainly appalling).Daragh McDowell 03.10.11 at 3:37 pm
Crikey Loose Lips got a Junior? That is genuinely surprising. She spent much of last year savaging Kenny and threatening not to run in the GE if she wasn’t promoted, earning her a much better funded running mate with full HQ support, effectively keeping her quiet for most of the campaign. That she was given something as genuinely important as European Affairs show’s a major error of judgement. Its not that she’s ‘appallingly reactionary’ – there’s really not enough substance to her for her to rise to that level.
I also think there’s a slight double standard here – Kenny, Hogan, Ring etc. are all for keeping ‘gay’ and ‘marriage’ legally separate as well as a number of stupid lock ’em up views on law and social policy. This is ‘acceptable’ as their all old men from outside the Pale. Creighton simply parroted the party line on civil partnerships (opposing them essentially being renamed in a way that might upset the religious) and was declared to be one of History’s Greatest Monsters in Irish terms. Methinks that may have something to do with her being young, female and representing DSE than it does anything else.
Adam 03.10.11 at 3:41 pm
I think the new Attorney General may prove to be quite a shrewd appointment on Labour’s part rather than a tokenistic one.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0310/1224291779292.html
Paddy Matthews 03.10.11 at 4:54 pm
That she was given something as genuinely important as European Affairs show’s a major error of judgement.
Might the purpose be to keep her too busy to plot? Same with Varadkar (Transport) and Hayes (Public Works).
Creighton simply parroted the party line on civil partnerships (opposing them essentially being renamed in a way that might upset the religious) and was declared to be one of History’s Greatest Monsters in Irish terms.
I think it was the “main purpose being to propagate” comment on Twitter that got Teh Gayz riled up.
But she had not exactly been enthusiastic about the original civil partnership legislation (start here and follow the links).
Niamh 03.10.11 at 6:50 pm
I added a few thoughts concerning the cabinet composition to Ingrid’s thread on International Women’s Day, specifically on the surprise appointment of Joan Burton to Social Protection instead of one of the Finance ministries.
CMK 03.10.11 at 7:10 pm
Burton’s facial expressions since the election to today have been interesting. February 25 to approximately 4.45pm March 9: a constant smile on her face to match that of the proverbial Cheshire cat. Post 4.45pm March 9: an unmistakeable stony, glum look, which looks like it will last for a good while yet. She was not best pleased by her portfolio, that’s for sure.
It makes no difference one way or the other as the Fine Gael / Labour demolition team will go about, with gusto, their appointed historical task of preparing the ground for a Fianna Fáil comeback and a Sinn Féin and United Left Alliance breakthrough next time round.
Maria 03.10.11 at 7:48 pm
Thanks, Niall and Paddy – corrections made.
Enda H 03.10.11 at 10:00 pm
Right so: I’m male, and absolutely delighted to see FF burned at the stake, so perhaps these bias my thinking here.
But I’m very happy with the cabinet. Regarding Darragh’s “minimally talented loyalists like Reilly and Shatter” comment: Shatter is a well-respected legal scholar and I think FG’s health plan lo0ks very equitable. I’d take these lads over Mary Coughlan, Willie O’Dea and Mary Harney any day of the week.
I don’t see it as a pity that few women were appointed to cabinet. I understand that only about 15% of the Dáil are women. On that basis, 2 women out of 15 in the cabinet is about representative. It would be foolish if it were engineered that, say, Creighton was given Finance instead of Quinn/Noonan because of her sex.
[Moreover, I’m still not convinced that it’s a problem that only 15% of the Dáil are female. I don’t vote for candidates based on their gender or age or sexuality, etc. Michael Marsh found no evidence that others discriminate against women, either. It seems that women are either not putting themselves forward. (Or are not selected by their parties, but I really don’t think the Oireachtas should have the right to tell parties who they wish to put forward.) And if they are not putting themselves forward, as far as I see it, that’s entirely their problem.]
eilis 03.10.11 at 10:52 pm
There’ve been 13 female ministers in the history of the Irish state: 5 of these have been in social protection, the portfolio given to Burton instead of finance. That’s too big a number to not be indicative of something.
What’s also interesting is that, when junior ministers are taken into account, labour has 5 women out of 11 positions, while fine gael has 2 out of 19. Despite the continued ‘jobs for the boys’ in labour, I am very happy they’re in a position to be so balanced at this stage. But in some way it worries me that so many of their women went into cabinet; was there pressure on them to make up the numbers of women, because they were available?
mollymooly 03.10.11 at 11:33 pm
A constitutional convention is supposed to report on several things, including “Removing blasphemy from the Constitution”, “Provision for same-sex marriage”, and “Possible reduction of the voting age”. The fact that there is no hedging “Possible” in the first two might suggest there is no room for doubt. But I …em… doubt it.
P O'Neill 03.11.11 at 2:13 am
This problem might be ameliorated over time. I think this Cabinet will have higher turnover than its predecessors of the last 15 years, where ministerial moves were rare and definitely not based on performance. But within a year it should be clear which ministers are making progress or otherwise, with implications for moves and thus a chance to bring in some people with noses up against the window. This won’t be a steady-as-she-goes Bertie cabinet. Speaking of Bertie, one minister he seems to have never wanted in his inner circle was Brian Lenihan. He clearly knew something.
Niall McAuley 03.11.11 at 8:44 am
I don’t think Bertie distrusted Brian Lenihan because he suspected he had a fondness for turning private bank debt into sovereign debt:
Yond Lenihan has a lean and hungry look,
he thinks too much, such men are dangerous.
jaybee 03.11.11 at 9:21 am
FG were never going to agree to let anyone from Labour never mind Joan Burton into the Dept of Finance and I suppose that the concession to split the Ministry in two probably carried a secondary veto in terms of it being someone that FG/Michael Noonan could get along with and they are clearly more conmfortable with Brendan Howlin than with Joan Burton.
Having said that I think that Social Protection is somewhere the Joan Burton’s understanding of finance and budgets should work well and she is probably a better fit there than is some of the other departments
A Richard Bruton/Joan Burton combo in Finance might have worked and I tend agree with Maria that but presumably his job for the next two years is to negoitiate with our new ECB/IMF masters and maybe he has that skillset?
The real disappointment for me was giving Ruairi Quinn a ministry. Surely he’s not going to stand next time and that would have freed up one place that Gilmore could have given to a woman? I think in two years Labour will either be exiting the coalition (to commemorate the 1913 Lock Out of course) or there will be a reshuffle anyway and Ruari will be shown the door
Niall McAuley 03.11.11 at 9:27 am
Burton was a junior minister in Welfare in the 92-94 FF-Labour coalition.
Maria 03.11.11 at 9:47 am
Enda H, you say you’re quite happy with the cabinet because you think it is proportionate to the pitiful number of women TDs in the current Dáil. However, this Dáil has the highest number of women TDs in the history of the state and yet the new Taoiseach has fewer women ministers than the last government. The proportion of women TDs has gone up, while that of women ministers has gone down. Getting away from the entertaining but not terribly useful ‘Mary Coughlan is worse/better than Lucinda Creighton’ discussion, does this counter-trend not seem trouble some to you? More women TDs yet fewer ministers?
In terms of the proportion of women who ran, i.e. who were nominated by the major parties, FF ran about 14% women (though none won), FG 15% and Labour 26%, going some way to answer Eilis’ query above. Labour simply selects more women to run.
Now let’s look at the ministries occupied by the pathetically small number – two – of women in the new cabinet: Children and Social Protection. As Eilis above says, the historic record is embarrassingly stark: “13 female ministers in the history of the Irish state: 5 of these have been in social protection”. This pink ghetto is no accident, and reflects an unacceptably lower set of expectations and aspirations for women in politics. I’m told that Ruairi Quinn, who I expected much, much better from, defended this on the radio a couple of days ago, saying “of course women know more about children, they spend more time with them, playing with them and so on; and social protection involves a lot about things like child benefit and managing household budgets…” How sickening. Do you also think women politicians should satisfy themselves with the Mammy Ministries because that’s all they know about?
(I don’t imagine for one moment you do think this, Enda, but can you at least acknowledge that Quinn’s unthinking annoyance that anyone would have a problem with the pink ghetto shows what we’re up against and why it’s not just the numbers that are so bad, it’s the ingrained attitudes of people, like Quinn, quite far along the progressive spectrum of opinion.)
You say you don’t vote for candidates based on gender. Perhaps you were one of the over 300,000 Irish voters who didn’t even get the choice of a woman candidate in their constituency. Very few people do use gender as the primary criterion, though many admit it as one factor considered. In a deeply sexist society like Ireland, I frankly do not believe anyone who wishes away gender altogether as a decision factor and believes him or herself somehow neutral or above it all.
But let’s do an admittedly specious mental experiment, Enda. On the 1 March you woke up to the same electoral result, but let’s imagine you live in a matriarchy instead. Only 12 – 15% of TDs are men. Sure, it’s less than the 51% of men in the population, but you have to understand, men need to put themselves forward and stop moaning about the impediments in their way. When the cabinet is announced you mark with an inward sigh of inevitability that the only two men in cabinet are in lesser ministries and in the blue ghetto; defence and, let’s say, fisheries. The one man who had a shot at a powerful ministry has been sidelined because women find him strident and uncharming. If only he’d try to rub along a bit better, maybe even flirt a little. Wouldn’t cost him anything. Hey ho, maybe next time, boys!
But of course there won’t be a next time. There’s never a next time, only this time, and this is never a good time. Even when it is: this election was a one-shot chance for FG to run more women, because they were more likely to get in. That window has now closed and FG has failed to run many more women, and failed to appoint them to decisive ministries.
A friend emails me:
“Irish women need to go forward for election in larger numbers; selection committees need to nominate them in larger numbers; and more generally, Irish public space needs to get used to the whole variety of types of voices and personalities among women just as among men. There is a long way to go.”
Indeed. But what ambitious woman would run? If she gets past the institutional sexism of selection and the casual sexism of the electorate (“I live in a deeply unjust society but never consider gender when I vote”), all she has to look forward to is being semi-permanently sidelined or shunted into a Mammy ministry. Who would bother?
Niall McAuley 03.11.11 at 11:21 am
In Galway West, FG ran two men and two women who were expected to win votes in the order Man, Woman, Man, Woman.
The two men were elected.
In casual conversation, I heard the men referred to as Walsh and Kyne, while the women were called Really Screams and Fernando Torres.
Niamh 03.11.11 at 4:14 pm
Just had a text from a friend. She says: ‘Men are great. I love them. But their hormones just get in the way at work. They’re not suited to it. All that My-Ministry’s-Bigger-Than-Yours nonsense’.
Nine 03.11.11 at 4:53 pm
“In casual conversation, I heard the men referred to as Walsh and Kyne, while the women were called Really Screams and Fernando Torres.”
Apologies for the OT … but what is the joke with the Fernando Torres name calling ? Is it that she looks like Torres, coz there’s not much of a resemblance in the link. It does sound amusing even if for no apparent reason.
Niall McAuley 03.11.11 at 5:09 pm
Yes, in some shots Ms. Naughton looks a bit Torresesque.
I was struck by the fact that even in this constituency where FG had made an effort to have some gender balance, the electorate weren’t having any.
(My own vote was up the road in Westmeath, and did help elect a female FGer, after the female Green no-hoper was eliminated. But don’t tell anyone, as it’s a secret ballot.)
Enda H 03.11.11 at 11:06 pm
@Maria, thanks for the reply.
“Enda H, you say you’re quite happy with the cabinet because you think it is proportionate to the pitiful number of women TDs in the current Dáil.”
Not a million miles off but it needs a minor refinement: I said I was happy with the cabinet, full stop. I wouldn’t mind an all-men cabinet anymore than I would mind an all-women cabinet if they were the best people for the job. My point about female membership of the cabinet being proportional to Dáil membership was tangential to this. The electorate put 166 bums on seats in Leinster House, about 15% of them were female. We can talk about the sub-optimality of this fact, but having 15% of the cabinet being women is at least “representative” in terms of the will of the people. Women are 50% of the population and 50% of the electorate and thus could return 50% representation. They didn’t.
“The proportion of women TDs has gone up, while that of women ministers has gone down… does this counter-trend not seem trouble some to you?”
No. Wood for the trees. I no more think it’s a bad thing than an increase would per se be a good thing.
“[Ruari Quinn is an eejit]… Do you also think women politicians should satisfy themselves with the Mammy Ministries because that’s all they know about?”
Of course not.
“I don’t imagine for one moment you do think this, Enda, but can you at least acknowledge that Quinn’s unthinking annoyance that anyone would have a problem with the pink ghetto shows what we’re up against and why it’s not just the numbers that are so bad, it’s the ingrained attitudes of people, like Quinn, quite far along the progressive spectrum of opinion.”
I would agree that there is a bit of an attitude problem with regards to women. But honestly, I don’t think it’s much. I’m not surprised that it’s not found to be statistically significant. I think most people agree that (e.g.) Richard Bruton is a fine TD. I don’t think Ireland would hesitate to elect him and want him in Finance if he were female. We have had no problem sending fine women to the Ãras for the past twenty years.
“You say you don’t vote for candidates based on gender. Perhaps you were one of the over 300,000 Irish voters who didn’t even get the choice of a woman candidate in their constituency.”
Having left the country a gargantuan six months ago, I had vote at all :-)
“In a deeply sexist society like Ireland, I frankly do not believe anyone who wishes away gender altogether as a decision factor and believes him or herself somehow neutral or above it all.”
Believe away. I’d be willing to compromise and say it is a factor that’s not statistically significant. I just don’t agree with the sentiment that Ireland is “deeply sexist” and certainly don’t take it as fact. Let me explain. Lingering attitudes exist, but I don’t think it’s a “deep” problem. I think it’s fair to say that the “lingering attitudes” are more pronounced against homosexuals and I wouldn’t be surprised if David Norris fails to become President. I am young, (sub)urban and male so I may just not have experienced the sexism, but I don’t see much evidence for it. (In contrast, I am also straight but can see the evidence against gays.)
“If she gets past the institutional sexism of selection and the casual sexism of the electorate, all she has to look forward to is being semi-permanently sidelined or shunted into a Mammy ministry.”
This might be getting closer to the crux of the matter. We could perhaps compromise and say that the electorate are sexist. We could agree that sexism is a bad thing. You might say this means we should change the rules a little to make it fairer, I might say that’s extremely undemocratic.
But I think I’d be granting you too much there. There is not even strong evidence of sexism by the electorate. There is only the ex post fact that only 15% of TDs/ministers are female. I’m sure I don’t need to explain my ‘equality of opportunity vs equality of outcomes’ justification of this. Vincent Browne had a lady on the other night (alas I can’t remember her name but she was a Fine Gael TD in the 80s) and her opinion was that the problem with female participation was that they were put-off by the boorish nature of political exchanges. I would welcome a more refined political discourse but I don’t want a TD who, in course of negotiations about an EU interest rate, is put out by a bit of dirty hurling. I think it’s somewhat sexist and untrue to think that women are simply not able to give it as much welly as the boys. I wouldn’t vote for a Margaret Thatcher on account of her policies but wouldn’t question her resolve. If FG woman is right, then in my opinion it’s up to potential female candidates to “man up” (aside: please blog about the potential for social inference from the existence of phrases like “grow some balls”/”man up”) rather than for politicians to stop behaving like pitbulls.
Paddy Matthews 03.14.11 at 1:57 am
I’m told that Ruairi Quinn, who I expected much, much better from, defended this on the radio a couple of days ago, saying “of course women know more about children, they spend more time with them, playing with them and so on; and social protection involves a lot about things like child benefit and managing household budgets…â€
Entirely unrelated to this:
Quinn got Cabinet post at Shortall’s expense, insiders claim.
Kenny Easwaran 03.14.11 at 5:52 am
I don’t know much of anything about Irish politics, but why does a female Attorney General seem “tokenist”? I always thought Attorney General was one of the more prominent cabinet posts in the US, after State and Defense. Maybe it’s lower status in Ireland?
chris y 03.14.11 at 10:41 am
Kenny, in the US, the Attorney General is essentially the Justice Minister, so yes, very important. But Ireland has a Minister of Justice called just that, so the AG is basically just a legal spokesperson for the government and water carrier for the Minister of Justice. In Britain the Attorney General isn’t usually in the Cabinet either.
Colin 03.16.11 at 12:56 pm
It does seem that Burton was shafted, and was presumably angry at that. (Though I was in Leinster House last Wednesday, and noticed her beaming and hugging somebody happily out on the forecourt, so I don’t put too much store in all the pundits observing her “rigid smile” and clenched teeth.) But there are some aspects of this debate that should be of concern to left-liberal types.
Lamenting that the women in cabinet merely got the “mammy” jobs serves to reinforce an agenda that sees anything involving women/children/families/the poor as being of less importance. Having written about the appalling state of Irish childcare, I think the creation of a Ministry of Children is a worthy innovation, and the converse of the argument that a good woman got a crap minstry is that a ministry that could easily be marginalised got a good minister, and so, hopefully, will not be. It remains to be seen how that ministry/department will be organised, but a minister for children could be a powerful voice at cabinet for equality – what should the objective of a minister for children be, if not to give all the children of the nation an equal chance?
Burton spoke convincingly and quite movingly of how social protection resonated with her, as someone who was adopted (on the same day as the cabinet was announced, by coincidence, she received in the post a photo of her birth mother as a young women). I would hope that, under her watch, the focus of the department might be less on the tiny percentage of people who attempt to defraud it, and more on making the systems and benefits work to build a decent and fairer society. She’s going to come under huge pressure to cut, and probably rather crudely. Protecting “social protection” could, it seems to me, be a job worthy of a a decent talent.
With regard to the proportion of women in the cabinet, I could be wrong, but I don’t recall many people giving Brian Cowen/Bertie Ahern credit for positive discrimination in appointing Marys Harney, Hanafin & Coughlan, as well as O’Rourke in the Seanad. In those cabinets, women were distinctly overrepresented by comparison with their Dáil representation – but they were appointed, presumably, on a combination of merit and leverage. As, presumably, were the new cabinet.
I think Burton got shafted because she left herself open to being shafted through her politics and media profile, and perhaps (as was suggested) Brendan Howlin playing a blinder in the negotiations. The real problem is not the cabinet – it’s the Dáil. And the problem there appears to be women not choosing to enter political life. And the reason for that? Irish political life is appallingly dysfunctional, craven to constituency demands, and hostile to family life.
On that, there are some positive signs: the reform agenda of the new government, and the sheer number of TDs who are new (76, almost half) and – perhaps – may be inclined to question practices and procedures that lie somewhere between quaint and corrupt.
There is a problem, and there are possible solutions – but the focus on Burton seems, to me, a distraction, rather than a potential catalyst.
jdkbrown 03.16.11 at 4:28 pm
@Enda H:
I suggest googling “implicit gender bias” or “unconscious gender bias”. There’s a large literature demonstrating that, by-and-large, people carry around stereotypes about gender (and race) that affect their decision-making. Here’s a decent summary of some of the findings in the context of academic hiring. You might also check out Project Implicit’s demonstration of unconscious association.
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