It is a wonder, you know, how quiet Ireland’s armada of feminist NGOs and campaigners go when their interventions might make life difficult for the Irish Government. One might have expected, given their remit, the national women’s council of Ireland to be weighing in, at the present moment, in support of EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, who is very eager to see an Irish woman given an equal shot at the €26,000 per month (yes, you read that right) EU commissioner job that is in the gift of the Government. If ever there was a chance for a “women and minorities under-represented” press release, this was surely the moment.
Those of you who read my weekly roundup last Friday will already know the broad outlines of this story: The Irish Government has a right to nominate one person for the job of EU commissioner. The Irish Government has no say, however, over what job that person might get in the EU commission itself. That decision is made by Commission President Von Der Leyen. The President, a good feminist in the mould of just about everybody who resides between Dublin’s canals, is eager for her new Commission to be perfectly gender balanced – half female, half male.
In pursuit of this goal, the President has asked the Irish Government – and that of every other member state – to nominate two candidates, a man and a woman. She would then choose from her nominees in order to create a perfectly balanced commission. It’s the kind of proposal that, were it being made by an Irish County Council to fill some board or other, would be regarded by our powers that be as the height of forward-thinking goodness. There’s just one problem.
That problem is, of course, that Fianna Fáil were promised the job back during the coalition negotiations, and that it has already been promised to ex-Finance Minister Michael McGrath. On foot of this, McGrath has announced his retirement from his Dáil seat (his brother will contest the election in his place, as is Fianna Fáil tradition), taken his round of glowing profiles in the Irish media, and left his job in the cabinet. He’s almost certainly already got the house in Brussels picked out.
Were the unthinkable to happen, and President Von Der Leyen were to choose an Irish female nominee instead, then Michael McGrath would be left without a job.
This, to be clear, is the kind of thing that horrifies Irish politicians more than just about anything else. It would be, to use a political term, a shafting on a historic scale. Were it to happen to McGrath, then it could happen to any of them. There is perhaps no more terrifying vista to the Irish politician’s psyche than the prospect of having been promised a job and not getting it – which is why even today, tales of Bertie Ahern showing Albert Reynolds his vote for him to be the FF Presidential nominee are the stuff of legendary horror in the Oireachtas.
As such, President Von Der Leyen must be told in no uncertain terms where to go: We’re nominating McGrath, the Government says, and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.
Which is, of course, true: There’s nothing she can do about it. The right to nominate a commissioner is the sole prerogative of the Irish cabinet, and they have made their choice. The €26,000 per month is McGrath’s, for the next five years.
That said, there’s now some palpable worry in Government that this might not work out all that well at geopolitical level. Here’s Jack Power in the Irish Times yesterday:
It will also not be forgotten that all four of McGrath’s Fianna Fáil party colleagues in the European Parliament voted against von der Leyen in the recent vote to confirm her for a second term. In doing so they broke ranks with Renew, the centrist grouping Fianna Fáil sit within at European level, which backed the commission president.
People close to the commission president describe her as someone who prizes both competency and loyalty. As a minister for public expenditure and later finance, Mr McGrath has no shortage of competency, having been a safe pair of hands at the heart of Government for several years.
On the loyalty front, the votes of Fianna Fáil’s MEPs and the decision of the Government to go against von der Leyen’s request for two names will be possibly significant marks against him. There will be plenty of blame to go around if Ireland’s next commissioner is given a dud portfolio anyway.
There is of course enormous irony here: That the Irish Government would prioritise gender equality right up until the moment it risked denying a white middle aged Fianna Fáil man a big job is undeniably funny. That it would suddenly start defending the principle of “best man for the job” ahead of gender quotas only when to do so might hurt Ireland’s influence is predictably typical. That our array of professional feminist campaigners – almost entirely funded by the taxpayer – would decide strategically to let this one go and not as much as raise an eyebrow in public is perhaps a useful demonstration as to why the Government funds them, and keeps them nicely house-trained.
Of course, in this instance, Von Der Leyen is actually entirely correct. Whatever about sniffing about gender quotas, it is frankly inconceivable that there isn’t a single woman in Ireland qualified to be nominated by the Government for the EU commission job. In this case, it is patently true that a call for gender equality is being denied because the Government wants the best man for the job, and will consider no other candidates.
The result of this is very likely to be a relative diminution of Ireland’s influence in Brussels. All because the Government is prioritising, in this case, a job for the boy ahead of the values it tells the rest of us to live by.
It’s a lesson in not taking them seriously. Their calls for gender quotas don’t apply to themselves, just as few enough of them are willing to offer their own spare rooms to those seeking international protection amidst a migration crisis. Do as we say, and not as we do.