McCreevy `created himself an image he doesn't like' and is trying `to ensure he's not seen as arrogant'

Just a fortnight into the new political season and Charlie McCreevy has already met the credit unions after a bitter two-year standoff. He has spoken frankly to political correspondents about the damage to him, his party and the Government from the O'Flaherty affair. He wrote a substantial article for The Irish Times which was published this week.

This is the man who appeared to make a virtue of his refusal to meet the credit unions, who unapologetically defended the O'Flaherty nomination through all the public and media criticism, and who regularly castigated the media in general and this newspaper in particular.

He has received a sustained hammering from the press over the past two years for, among other things, the politically inept way in which plans to tax the credit unions and to introduce tax individualisation were announced, as well as the O'Flaherty nomination. Mr McCreevy has seen much of this criticism as the pursuit of an agenda hostile to him, his party and the Government.

Opposition spokesmen routinely use the word "arrogant" when they speak of him. In Government circles people say he is unenthusiastic about advisers who are there to help him, and has shown little interest is using established consultation structures.

However, in recent months party backbenchers have joined the criticism, while the Taoiseach and his Ministers are understood to have made clear to him that they were unhappy with the series of avoidable controversies. Over the summer Mr McCreevy resolved to take a new approach.

Insiders say he is co-operating with and listening to people more. He has a new secretary general in the Department of Finance, John Hurley, who listens to his Minister's plans and points out pitfalls. His predecessor, Paddy Mullarkey, who retired in March, had a very good relationship with Mr McCreevy and was seen as highly capable, but was less inclined to highlight difficulties to his very determined Minister.

In short, according to optimists in Government, we will see more communication from Mr McCreevy, both within Government circles and among journalists and the general public.

"He's trying to ensure he is no longer perceived as arrogant when he is not, or as politically stupid when he is not, or as one of the boys who fix each other up when he's not. He has created himself an image he doesn't like and which isn't accurate," says one Government source.

"He's not arrogant," insists a source close to him. "But he now sees why people say he is, and he is going to try to do something about it."