THE VINCENT BROWNE INTERVIEW: Éamon Ó Cuív, the newly-appointed Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, talks to Vincent Browne about his oddly diverse portfolio.
It is not just that he looks like old Dev, but he talks like him and thinks like him: the same convolutions, the same hair-splittings, similar certitudes. He has now made it into the Cabinet at the same time as another de Valera grandchild, Síle de Valera, has been dropped.
He was born on June 23rd 1950 in Dublin, one of nine children of Brian Ó Cuív and Emer de Valera.
His mother was the second youngest de Valera child (the youngest being Terry, father of Síle). His father was the brother of Andrias Ó Cuív, who was one of de Valera's Attorney Generals and later President of the High Court and member of the European Court of Justice.
He went to Pembroke School, in Dublin 4, and then to Oaklands College, before going on to UCD, where he did a degree in science. He spent a year in Dublin working for two Irish-language organisations. Then, on January 1st, 1974, he became manager of a small co-operative in Cornamona in Connemara, he being the only employee.
He got married in 1975, to Áine Ní Choincheannáin. They have four children aged between 18 and 24.
He was elected to the Senate in 1989 and to the Dáil in 1992. He became a minister of state in 1997 and in 2000 he was moved from Arts to the Department of Agriculture, with responsibility for rural development, a move which greatly displeased him, because there was little funding available for rural development.
He displeased Bertie Ahern last year when he revealed that he had voted against the Nice Treaty, having spoken in favour of it prior to the referendum.
Although Bertie Ahern was unsettled by the revelation, it appears that when he spoke to Ó Cuív about it there was no reproach, and certainly the issue did not emerge when he was appointed to the Cabinet on Thursday afternoon.
He is now a full minister with a rag-bag of responsibilities. These are community affairs (taken from the existing Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Tourism and Sport); Gaeltacht and the Islands (taken from the existing Arts etc Department); and drugs policy (taken from the Department of Health and Children).
It will take several months to sort out. He certainly knows about community, the islands and the Gaelteacht, but what about drugs?
VB: When did you hear you were getting a Cabinet position?
EOC: Just on Thursday afternoon, after Bertie Ahern returned from Áras an Uachtaráin. There were rumours floating about before then, but I am a sceptical person and I paid no attention to them. He simply told me what my responsibilities were. There was very little discussion, it was all typed up. I was thrilled, obviously.
VB: When did you find out that Síle was not in the Cabinet?
EOC: Just before I was told I was in the Cabinet. She and I are very close. She wished me well. She is an absolutely charming person and she will put a brave face on it, but I know it must be a great disappointment to her.
VB: How do you feel about the rag-bag of responsibilities you have been given - community affairs, the Gaeltacht, the Irish language, rural affairs, the islands and drugs policy?
EOC: The Opposition made a big deal about the supposed incoherence of the portfolio, but I think there is major significance in linking community affairs and drugs policy, for instance, together. It shows the centrality of the community to the drugs problem in the eyes of the Taoiseach.
VB: What do you know about the drugs issue?
EOC: I would not claim to be any great expert on the drugs issue, but I am father of four children who are either just past or in their late teenage years. I have the same apprehensions that most parents have on drugs. Also, my constituency is a mixture of urban the rural, which gives me some insight into the multi-faceted nature of the drugs problem. But I would not claim to have the expertise in this area that others have. When I went to be manager of the co-operative in Cornamona, I did not know anything about farming, but I know about it now. I feel that, similarly, I will get to know about drugs.
VB: There are two broad strains of thought on drugs: one is that the focus should be on the supply side, that we should concentrate on stopping the drugs getting through and target the traffickers and the pushrs; the other is that we should deal with the demand side, we should look at the social factors that give rise to the drugs problem. I know that most people will talk about a balance between these two strands, but where would the preponderance of your focus be?
EOC: It would be very premature for me to start making hasty judgments on this, without having sat down with anybody on this. But I suppose the answer is, as you suggested, a combination of both. But I think the linking of drugs with building community shows that the Taoiseach is aware that there is a wide community dimension to the drugs issue, the need to deal with the issue of deprivation, for instance. It shows that he thinks the drugs issue cannot be dealt with in isolation from community.
VB: What is the "community" brief?
EOC: There are various community grants and community supports that will be transferred over from the Department of Social Welfare, which will be transferred over to this new Department. Als,it takes over responsibilities formerly held by the Department of Sport and Tourism, in relation to disadvantaged areas.
VB: Does the de Valera mantle sit heavily on you?
EOC: No, I don't think so. I am my own man, as I think my work history shows. As a young man I went and started a co-operative as a one-man operation, working for a voluntary committee. I stuck with that for 20 years and am proud to look today that where there was a bog 30 years ago there are 120 jobs now. The people who succeeded me have made a tremendous success of it. I have done my own thing. Because of my family background, I think it was important that I put a fair amount of work behind me in the wider world before going into politics.
VB: Was your grandfather a significant influence on you when you were growing up?
EOC: My parents were, of course, the main influences on me, but Éamon de Valera and Sinéad de Valera were my only grandparents when I was growing up - my father's parents had died before he married. They were a very big part of our lives. They were a very benign part of our lives.
We knew them as very kind family members and it was on that basis that we knew them. I can remember the time when de Valera was in opposition in the 50s and then when he was Taoiseach from 1957 to 1959, before he became President. Of course, I can remember all the years that he was in Áras an Uachtaráin, from 1959 to 1973. We went up regularly. It was a great place to go. When we would go up on a Sunday, we would play hurling or football on the grounds. It was an ideal, super place for young people.
VB: Have you any sense of embarrassment about the way that the de Valera family appropriated not just control but ownership of the Irish Press, which enabled them, the family, to make a lot of money out of it?
EOC: I want to put it on the record here: de Valera never took any money out of the Irish Press. I would like to make that absolutely clear.
VB: Well, the family did.
EOC: Yes, that is true, and no member of my direct family ever made any money out of the Irish Press, including my mother, Emer de Valera. What happened the Press is, I think, a great tragedy. It was a responsibility left in trust, to be run as a national newspaper, to provide a national view, and I regret very much that it did not maintain the standing it had as a national voice of a republican view, in the best sense of republicanism.
VB: Would you like to be Taoiseach?
EOC: I suppose there is not a politician in Dáil Éireann who would not like to be Taoiseach. But the reality is that I never think in those terms. Politics is like a greasy pole. It is hard to climb up, but very easy to slip down to the bottom. Anybody who keeps looking up, instead of looking at the ground, will end up flat on their faces.