Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, James McDaid.

Track record

James McDaid's curriculum vitae will include favourable mention of his efforts to forge tourism links with the North, but he might reflect that reaching out across the Border was far easier than reaching out across the minefield of Irish sports politics.

The sports-related aspect of his job has involved him in almost ceaseless controversy. The decision early on to lock horns with Irish IOC member Pat Hickey reflected an incomplete understanding of the strength of Hickey's fiefdom, nationally and internation- ally. McDaid was left looking weak as he complained about the number of Olympic accreditations Hickey had arranged for his office. McDaid's subsequent decision to commission a report on the Irish performance in Sydney and then release it in the course of an internal election campaign within the Irish Olympic Council also backfired. Hickey is now Ireland's most powerful voice in world sport, but the bridges have yet to be rebuilt. To his credit, however, McDaid was also one of the few politicians in the country to respond rationally to the Michelle Smith affair. His work in setting up an Irish drug-testing agency and his understanding of the imperatives of the issue will be a major part of his legacy.

Main achievement

McDaid's time in office will be remembered as the period when the issue of sport and sports funding moved closer to the centre of the Government agenda. Enjoying the twin benefits of a sports-mad Taoiseach and a buoyant economy, McDaid has made sport more than the lip-service issue it was in the past. We don't quite have a regional sports policy fully integrated within our health and education plans, but we have better funding and the start of a real debate about the merits of elite sports funding as opposed to grassroots funding.

Biggest failure

McDaid has been an enthusiastic proponent of the Taoiseach's National Sports Campus idea, although, as one who is undoubtedly familiar with the failure of the Homebush Bay site in Sydney (upon which Abbotstown is largely modelled), this might just be a case of political pragmatism. Whatever the motivation, he has been efficient in rallying the support of sports organisations.

The project, however, seems ill-starred. Although unlikely to cost McDaid at the ballot box, his association with it is unlikely to be of long-term political benefit.

Prospects

McDaid was an unlikely candidate for the Sports and Tourism portfolio and it was said that he might have enjoyed a more substantial challenge. As it transpired, his willingness to immerse himself in the brass-knuckle world of sports politics elevated the job from lightweight to middleweight division.

The scathing criticisms of the management of the Abbotstown project contained in the HighPoint-Rendell report and the Minister's "I'm as surprised as you are" reaction to the revelation that responsibility for the National Aquatic Centre was handed to a dormant company would in harder times, or under a different Taoiseach, have cost him his job. As it is, he enjoys a little of the Teflon effect himself.

Tom Humphries, Chief Sports Writer

OPPOSITION PERFORMANCE

Fine Gael

Nora Owen

Nora Owen, recently appointed spokeswoman by Michael Noonan, will make life difficult for McDaid until the election. Tourism was previously part of Jim Higgins's public enterprise brief.

Once deputy leader under John Bruton, her star declined with the change of leadership. However, an impressive performance as the party's director in the abortion referendum has raised her profile. For the Dáil's remaining life, she will maximise any political benefit to be gained from her promotion.

Labour

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin

Dick Spring appointed her late father, Michael Moynihan, to a junior ministry, with responsibility for tourism, in the 1980s. She is hoping for a similar portfolio if Labour achieves power. A competent performer, she avoids the parliamentary antics of some of her more colourful colleagues on the front bench. Representing Kerry South, and a native of Killarney, she can relate her observations on tourism to her political base.

M. O'R.