Taoiseach Micheál Martin recently floated the idea of appointing a fulltime Minister for the Marine.
One of the reasons why this attracted attention was that such an appointment would require a referendum as the constitution restricts the number of ministers in the executive to fifteen.
With a maritime territory extending to 880,000 square km (ten times Ireland’s land territory) and which includes extensive fisheries and energy resources not to mention vital undersea cables, there would indeed appear to be a compelling case for the appointment of a Minister for the Marine.
But, in many ways, that piece of political kite flying by Martin only serves to focus attention on the existing shambolic allocation of ministerial portfolios. This sees Ireland’s 15 cabinet posts distributed in an entirely chaotic manner with many ministers taking on totally overloaded portfolios while key areas are ignored entirely.
If you want evidence of this then consider the jaw-dropping portfolio of Minister Patrick O’ Donovan. His official title is as Minister for Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport meaning that he is supposedly overseeing and directing policy in five separate and distinct areas.
No one doubts that the Limerick Fine Gael TD isn’t a diligent worker but surely it strains all credibility to believe that one person can be fully on top of an impossible portfolio like this.
In practice, what happens in cases like this is that the minister skims over his or her portfolio focusing on political announcements and PR stunts or on political fire fighting when required. These are now the key survival skills for a minister who wishes to thrive in Ireland’s political ecosystem.
In truth, the achievement for most Irish ministers is in being appointed as a minister not in anything relating to the impossible portfolios they have been lumbered with. Accordingly, ministers are likely to be more interested in being pictured cutting the ribbon for a new road in their own constituency than they are in undertaking the far more challenging task of reforming a government department.
Mind you, no one should underestimate the political courage and skill required by ministers in fire fighting duties relating to their portfolio. This was demonstrated again lately by Minister Norma Foley whose official title as Minister for Children, Disability and Equality makes it sound like she is seriously underworked compared to the likes of her cabinet colleague Patrick O’ Donovan.
Readers will be aware of the ongoing skirmishing between Gript’s Ben Scallan and Minister Norma Foley over the inclusion by Children’s Books Ireland (partly funded by her own department) of a book promoting practices such as anal sex for 15 year old children. When pressed as to whether she thought that this was outrageous, Ireland’s Minister for Children would only say that reading material for children was a matter for their parents.
Of course, no one believes that Foley actually believes this just as no one believes that she thinks that things like smoking, alcohol and drug taking, online safety and even e-scooters are matters for parents rather than being subject to state oversight.
What her reluctance to express her own opinions on the subject really demonstrates is the extent to which ministers are now required to operate within the guard rails imposed by NGO lobbyists and the like. In the case of the Minister for Children it appears that it is NGOs such as TENI and BeLongTo who set down what Norma Foley’s official views are relating to the state’s support in promoting the idea that anal sex is fine for 15 year old children.
The notion that NGOs get to decide what the Minister for Children thinks is or is not outrageous is not some wild conspiracy theory. Consider, for one moment, the evolution of the same Department of Children.
A key feature in this was the appointment of Katherine Zappone as Minister for Children by Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2016. For Zappone, being appointed to the Cabinet on her first day in Dáil Éireann was quite the achievement considering that it took her until the sixteenth count in Dublin South-West to be elected as a TD.
Zappone was essentially an American west coast Democrat and gender ideology ideologue amongst other things. One of her main objectives in office appears to have been in embedding gender ideology into Irish life. Indeed, the Minister for Children included LGBTQ+ NGO’s TENI and BeLongTo in funding from her department.
Zappone’s successor at the Dept. of Children in 2020 was none other than Green TD Roderic O’ Gorman, another gender ideology ideologue. Is anyone really surprised, therefore, that Norma Foley, Ireland’s Minister for Children, does not feel free to say that it is indeed outrageous that the state is assisting in promoting a book which promotes anal sex to 15 year old children?
The closer you look at the allocation of ministerial portfolios the worse it gets. Most countries attach such importance to defence that they appoint a full time Minister for Defence. Not so in Ireland where the core function of defence is tagged on to the portfolio of Helen McEntee, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence.
It’s little wonder that Ireland’s defence forces are a shambles. Not alone does the country lack the ability to mount the most token defence against an attack, our defence forces even lack the ability to assist the civil powers in case of need. This was demonstrated during Covid when the Irish defence forces lacked the capacity to even set up a field hospital.
No blame whatsoever can be laid for this on the members of the defence forces. The blame, in its entirety, rests with the political executive which has decided to run Ireland in this way. This is the country that Fine Gael has been running for the last 15 years assisted by their one-time opponents Fianna Fáil for the last six years.
The hallmark of any effective organisation or government is that it focuses on core activities and concentrates on doing them well. That is the very antithesis of how the state now works in Ireland.
Today, Ireland’s political executive is preoccupied with matters that it either has no control over or that it has no business being involved in to begin with. Meanwhile, many of the core activities that it should be focussed on are either neglected or ignored entirely.
Ireland does indeed need a Minister for the Marine which might usefully be combined with defence. However, the good news is that we don’t need an additional cabinet post to do this.
Many of the overblown cabinet portfolios that exist today are there to serve the interests of NGOs and related lobbyists. These have shown themselves to be a malign influence and a distraction from what the state should be doing.
A political executive focussing on core functions such as border controls, the economy, housing, health, education, transport, justice, defence etc might be bad news for Ireland’s NGOs. However, that same shift in emphasis would have the potential to transform the lives of ordinary Irish people.