Among politicians and political correspondents, Gavan Reilly has a reputation for being the political nerd that other political nerds call “the Guv’nor”. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of political life, elections, parliamentary procedure and the operations of government.
His knowledge is often relied upon by his colleagues at Leinster House, where he is the authoritative source on the famous political correspondents’ WhatsApp group, the ur-source of all political wisdom, or something like that. To this he brings a good broadcaster’s knack for making the complex and sometimes arcane both comprehensible and relevant to a general audience.
Reilly has applied these skills and knowledge to good effect in The Secret Life of Leinster House, his new guide to “what you really need to know about how the country runs”. It is a survey of political life from the inside out, a behind-the-scenes explainer of everything from canvassing to cabinet, from Dáil debates to the Dáil bar, from mandarins to media.
Gavan Reilly: The Secret Life of Leinster House
Reilly writes with the benefits of insiders’ perspectives, but he is not blind to the system’s many faults. He is good on the chronic standards of most debates in the Dáil. And there is something worrying about the conclusion of “some rural TDs” – that “the key to retaining a seat in Leinster House is to be in Leinster House as little as possible”.
Nobody is as aware of the system’s shortcomings as TDs are. People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy reflects that much of his constituency work is on matters that could be solved by browsing the website of the Citizens Information Board. This frustrates him as when TDs are elected on the grounds of “you’re the best fella for getting a hip operation”, it is to the detriment of promoting a more “ideological” model of politics, which he would prefer.
Later, Murphy notes that he consciously avoids becoming friends with other TDs because “becoming personally sympathetic to others outside of the socialist sphere might compromise his own politics”.
“I’m very conscious of not speaking to make friends with them, because I think that would make your job harder,” Murphy says. My strong sense is that he is probably okay on that score.
Enoch Powell once reflected that a politician complaining about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea. Reilly is entertaining on the relationship between politics and the media and confesses to a private sympathy for backbenchers sent on “suicide missions” to television studios during crises and controversies.
Reilly is also excellent on the relationship between ministers and civil servants, and on the potential tensions between an impatient minister with a reform agenda and a wary Civil Service, comfortable with the status quo and secure in the knowledge that ministers come and go. When a new minister is appointed, he notes, officials often test them by stacking their diary with meetings and briefings in their early weeks.
“You’ll go in and what they will do is, they will try to bury you with briefings and everything,” one former minister tells him. “Your response should be to bury them back with questions.”
I was determined to find an error in this carefully researched and sourced book, so my joy was unconfined when Reilly asserted that the system of special advisers dated to 1997 and the Rainbow Coalition led by John Bruton. In fact, special advisers had been around since the 1970s. In 1992, “programme managers” were introduced by the ill-fated Labour-Fianna Fáil Coalition and, along with special advisers, they continued when the Rainbow took over, without an election, in early 1995. Currently, ministers tend to have a special adviser and a media adviser.
On the topic of advisers, Reilly is informative about the temptations for political correspondents to hop the fence and work for government, and non-judgmental about their choices.
If there is one common theme throughout the book, it is the hardships and pressures that are part of the daily life of politicians and their families. Reilly does not plead sympathy for them, but he seeks understanding of the sacrifices required. Many harbour regrets about the time spent away, especially from young families.
One politician admits that he had been so distant through his youngest child’s early life that he had no first-hand memories of their toddler years. Were it not for a healthy stock of photographs taken in his absence, he says, he would be entirely unable to imagine how his youngest child looked at that age.
Democratic systems require people to put themselves forward for election if they are to function. But the prevailing tone about politicians in a populist age is one of derision, suspicion and cynicism. No doubt, some bring it upon themselves. But my experience is that the more people know about the actual work that politicians do, the more understanding and sympathetic they are, not just to the politicians themselves, but to the demands and compromises required. In that sense, this book will provide an important public service.
- Pat Leahy is Political Editor of The Irish Times
