As soon as Paschal Donohoe had announced his departure for the World Bank, I was speculating with a senior politician over who Simon Harris would appoint to replace him. I managed to convince myself that he would nominate Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.
For starters, she would be the first female finance minister in the history of the state. That would give the government some badly needed favourable publicity. Of more importance, she looks like she is the most intellectually capable of the current rank of Fine Gael ministers. Last, but not least, with considerable speculation that she has already begun planning a leadership campaign to unseat Simon Harris, putting her into Finance would absorb her attention and keep her politically tied down for at least the next year or so.
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