Ahern moves swiftly to bind up party and protect the Coalition

After the trauma of Ray Burke's departure from politics it was "next business" for the Coalition in the Dail yesterday as Bertie Ahern rose to fill the gap in the Government's ranks.

There was sense of deja vu about it all: the passed-over men coming to claim their own on the back of a colleague's misfortunes.

David Andrews, elegant and slightly distant, heard the words from the Taoiseach that transformed him once again into the State's chief representative abroad.

The nightmare of the Reynolds years, when he was unceremoniously shifted to make room for Dick Spring and the Labour Party interlopers, faded. The recent disappointment, when the man he had proposed as party leader looked to Mr Burke to head up Foreign Affairs was an ephemeral memory. The shambles of being briefly nominated as Minister for European Affairs with an input to the Northern talks might never have happened. The big job was his again. The chance to become a key player in a historic settlement of the Irish Question.

The Taoiseach showed little pleasure in the announcements. He was pouring oil into old wounds. Binding up the party and the Coalition; trying to re-establish its credentials as a consensus man after a month of controversy and party divisions which saw the shafting of Albert Reynolds and the resignation of Mr Burke.

His promotion of Mr Andrews drew a veil over the Dun Laoghaire TD's recent rebellious attitude.

Having been denied an opportunity to seek the party's nomination for President, and messed about in the subsequent hugger-mugger, Mr Andrews was feeling sore. So sore that on his return from India he publicly supported Mr Reynolds for President. It wasn't what the leadership had expected from the man who had earlier gone public in support of John Hume and against Mr Reynolds.

But all such difficulties and differences were quietly laid aside yesterday in the interests of party unity and the protection of the Coalition. In making his appointment, Mr Ahern slightly altered the focus of his anger and had a go at the opposition parties for shredding Mr Burke's reputation in the interest of "short-term political advantage".

The Taoiseach defended his original appointment of Mr Burke as Minister for Foreign Affairs on the grounds that he was "the best man for the job". He gave John Bruton the back of his hand by likening Mr Burke's "sound political judgment" on Northern Ireland with the Fine Gael leader's "erratic handling of the peace process".

Looked at from below in the political pecking order, the beauty of a sudden senior vacancy is that it creates not just one job but three. As Mr Andrews moved up from Defence, Mr Michael Smith - a staunch Albert Reynolds supporter - got the nod from within the ranks of Ministers of State.

Mr Ahern's decision could not be faulted. Mr Smith held the Defence portfolio before, and as a former Minister for the Environment he has lots of experience. His promotion will help to defuse some of the tensions caused within the party by the recent humiliation of Mr Reynolds. But his constituency colleague, Michael O'Kennedy, is unlikely to cheer very loudly as his ambition is ignored once again.

Not that Mr Ahern will be particularly concerned. Yesterday's exercise was designed to seal off trouble from the Reynolds loyalists. And the Taoiseach went for broke on that. It has become something of a tradition for a Taoiseach to leave a junior ministry vacant for some weeks in order to encourage party discipline. And, with a back bench containing considerable talent, Mr Ahern could have been expected to delay an appointment. Far better to let the issue sit; to carefully measure the hunger and ruthlessness of candidates as they made their various pitches for the job. That way their future potential could be assessed.

But Mr Ahern was not interested in the broad range of party talent. His focus was on the Reynolds rump. From there he selected former Minister of State Noel Treacy, who had acted as campaign manager for Maire Geoghegan-Quinn in her bid for the leadership and had remained a strong Reynolds supporter.

In promoting three slightly rebellious members of his party, the Taoiseach gave a swipe to an absent opponent. Naming Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn as the person who had given him a "secret report" on Mr Burke and the passports in 1994, Mr Ahern complained about a newspaper leak of the document. And he allowed the ghost of the former minister to hang in the Dail air.

The Taoiseach accused certain newspapers of treating politics as a bloodsport and The Irish Times was clearly identified when he complained that a report which appeared in 1994 had prevented him from forming a government with the Labour Party.

From there his anger turned on Fine Gael and he accused John Bruton of "hypocrisy" and of denying Mr Burke the benefit of natural justice.

There was plenty of incoming fire, too, as the Dail battle raged for a second day. The Taoiseach's judgment, political courage and leadership came under fierce scrutiny, and the Fine Gael leader was scathing about his handling of the Burke controversy. Mr Ahern had, he said, "listened, agonised, dithered and done nothing . . . in the usual way".

It was all minor skirmishing on the edges of the real action. Mr Ahern's determination to steady Fianna Fail through the promotion of people with solid, if uninspiring, ability would take effect. And he found time to pay tribute to the Progressive Democrats for their solidarity at this time. The Coalition show goes on.