Bertie's three Hail Marys for Cabinet's sins of omission

Everybody agreed that the one shock omission from the new Cabinet was Father Seán Healy.

After his performance in Inchydoney, where he accepted Fianna Fáil back into the Church, the CORI director was tipped for a big-spending portfolio. But in the line-up announced by Bertie Ahern, he was as invisible as the Holy Ghost.

Perhaps he will hover over the Cabinet as an ineffable presence - or perhaps his role in Inchydoney was overstated and he was only there to hear Fianna Fáil's confession and prescribe three Hail Marys.

The Marys were duly hailed yesterday: Coughlan to Agriculture, Hanafin to Education and Harney to Health. Yet nothing in the rest of the line-up suggested Bertie Ahern was undertaking not to sin again.

The only obvious change of direction in the reshuffle involved Séamus Brennan's career path. The former Minister for Transport was dramatically derailed (due to a suspected fault on his airport line) and will now undergo extensive repairs at the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

"Well and truly shafted" was engineer Pat Rabbitte's preliminary assessment of the damage to his infrastructure.

But Mr Brennan's punishment for upsetting the Taoiseach's fellow northsiders (his come-down was so dramatic, Aer Rianta might be tempted to impose landing charges), meant delivering the State welfare system into the hands of a man dubbed by the opposition as "more PD than the PDs themselves".

Meanwhile the PD leader Mary Harney was becoming Minister for Health, a move predicted by many but understood by few. If this is what CORI had in mind, God truly must work in mysterious ways.

The newcomers to Cabinet were Willie O'Dea, Dick Roche and Mary Hanafin. Willie, Dick and Mary sound like a 1960s folk group, and yet these are the new faces Bertie Ahern hopes will put his Government back on top of the hit parade.

Aged 108 between them, Dick and Willie sat together in the Dáil smiling like schoolboys who had broken into a sweet shop. Mary Hanafin was composed by comparison, as her years controlling the unruly classroom of the Government's backbenches were rewarded with the ministry of education.

"Corporal O'Dea", as Enda Kenny called him, had seen his long march to Cabinet rewarded with the defence portfolio, causing Michael Ring to quip: "The country is safe!" What wasn't safe was the career of the man Mr O'Dea replaced.

After a long political illness, Michael Smith was duly reshuffled off this mortal coil and nothing became him in ministerial life like the manner of his leaving it. Outside Leinster House, he had to correct a string of well-wishers urging him to enjoy his retirement ("I'm not retiring!"), but his mood was mellow and philosophical.

"One does not leave a convivial party until closing time," he told reporters. This was a quote from Churchill, apparently. Although it raised a number of questions (e.g.: would "closing time" be an attempt by Mary Harney to implement the Hanly Report in full?), yesterday didn't seem the right time to ask.