PROFILE: Ultimately, Brian Cowen failed to be seen to be doing the right thing
WE ARE told that when Albert Reynolds finally stepped down as taoiseach in 1994, following weeks of political turmoil, his transport minister and loyal supporter Brian Cowen broke down in tears.
There was a close bond of loyalty between the two of them: the younger man had been a key supporter of Reynolds in his drive to the top and was rewarded with high office at an early age.
Part of the emotion for Cowen at the time must have been the sheer stupidity of it all: here was a government with a huge majority which had risked a great deal to broker an end to the violent and bitter conflict in Northern Ireland. How could it all go wrong?
Although the present administration has been almost permanently on a cliff edge and has faced unprecedented economic problems, there is still the same feeling that Cowen, like Reynolds before him, could have avoided disaster had he played it differently.
Just as Reynolds was responsible for a political and public relations calamity when he released carefully selected extracts from the long-awaited and highly sensitive beef tribunal report, so, too, has Cowen shown a tin ear when it came to matters of perception and how things come across to the public.
Ultimately, the pair of them failed to meet a fundamental requirement of political life: it’s not enough to do the right thing; you must be seen to be doing the right thing.
Even after all that has happened, history may well be kind to Cowen, as it has been to Reynolds. Writing recently in the Irish News, Denis Bradley, himself a key figure in the Northern peace process, compared Cowen to John Hume, arguing that both of them had doggedly insisted on pursuing the appropriate course of action, regardless of the electoral and political consequences.
Cowen’s many critics will be quick to point out that, whatever about the corrective actions his government took in recent times, in the period when he was minister for finance he signally failed to anticipate the coming storm and that his approach served to exacerbate the crisis when it finally broke.
It is true, of course, that there are few heroes in that particular chapter of our economic and political history. Economic austerity was not at the top of any party’s agenda in the last general election, when Cowen still held the finance portfolio.
Cowen can argue, and indeed has done so, that the crash was not foreseen by any government in the western world: the Lehman Brothers collapse came as a surprise to the US political establishment, while our nearest neighbours across the Irish Sea were not particularly adept in reading the tea-leaves either.
His steadiness in the course of the campaign, as Bertie Ahern was buffeted from side to side, undoubtedly helped Fianna Fáil to remain in power.
Indeed, few politicians in the life of this State have acceded to the office of taoiseach with as much goodwill and optimism at their backs as Brian Cowen had when he took over from Ahern on May 7th, 2008.
The near-euphoria of those days is almost comical in retrospect, with the most outstanding image that of Cowen himself standing on a platform in his native town of Clara, Co Offaly, and belting out a ballad to the adoring crowd.
Before long, the dream started to go sour. In the first Lisbon referendum, he admitted he had not read the treaty in full, while some ill-chosen words conveyed the impression he did not entirely appreciate the need for cross-party unity.
At the post-referendum press conference, Cowen was clearly shattered by the news. As with the Nice Treaty, a second vote was called, in which the Yes side proved victorious, but the new Taoiseach’s vulnerability had become evident to all.
A much-greater disaster now loomed as the international financial crisis lapped up on Irish shores. In Ireland’s case it was greatly exacerbated by reckless bank lending to property developers, particularly by Anglo Irish Bank.
We were in uncharted waters.
A cabinet decision was taken in the early hours of the morning to provide a State guarantee to the main banks and financial institutions.
Only the Labour Party voted against the guarantee in the Dáil.
Far from dying down, the controversy continues to this day, having been rekindled by revelations about Cowen’s social contacts, including a game of golf and a dinner with Anglo Irish executives in the months before the crucial decision.
Here again it is perception and Cowen’s failure to anticipate and manage or influence that perception which have been his undoing. His integrity and probity are widely accepted in public life, even by his opponents, and had he approached the issue differently, he could have nipped the “Golfgate” crisis in the bud.
Rather than responding rapidly and comprehensively to the Sunday Times disclosures, he gave the impression that information would have to be dragged out of him. In this age of WikiLeaks, he would have done better to have thrown aside the drip-feed and flooded the public with facts.
That’s not Cowen’s style. He has all the inherent caution of a country solicitor steeped in traditional Fianna Fáil politics. Even his initial election to the Dáil was based on a sympathy vote arising from the untimely death of his father Bernard “Ber” Cowen just before his 52nd birthday.
Cowen had only recently emerged from University College Dublin, where he socialised with all the zeal traditionally associated with student life. As a politician, he remained an enthusiastic social drinker.
This mattered little when he was a TD or even a minister but, once he became Taoiseach, the rumour factory inevitably went into overdrive.
It all ended in disaster at the Galway “think-in” of Fianna Fáil last September, when he appeared to be hungover in a radio interview with RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
In that short-lived Fianna Fáil- Labour administration of 1992- 1994, Cowen first became minister for labour and then moved to transport, energy and communications, where he relaxed the terms of the stopover for transatlantic flights at Shannon airport.
Although never part of Ahern’s inner circle, which is largely confined to Drumcondra, Ahern made him minister for health in 1997, a portfolio Cowen memorably compared to Angola because of the proliferation of political landmines.
He took over from David Andrews as minister for foreign affairs in 2000 and won the respect of his civil servants for his sharp intelligence and ability to absorb a policy brief: he took a keen interest in the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and showed courage in forcefully raising the plight of the Palestinians with then-US secretary of state Colin Powell when others bit their tongues.
His critics say he has always been unduly reliant on the mandarins and that this was his undoing when he moved to the department of finance in 2004.
The property bubble was still swelling and a failure to take adequate corrective action is high on the list of charges levelled against Cowen by his detractors.
Ahern’s problems over his personal finances continued to grow, but Cowen remained steadfastly loyal to his taoiseach and party leader. Ahern reciprocated by anointing him his successor, well in advance of a parliamentary party decision.
Those who knew him well detected a certain reluctance on Cowen’s part and even wondered if he really wanted the job.
When he took over and the economy went pear-shaped, he was urged to give a state-of-the- nation address to inspire the people to make and accept the necessary sacrifices.
He never did that and has always had a distaste for “grandstanding”; there has been an occasional rhetorical flurry but the television cameras were generally otherwise engaged.
As his government enters its final hours, Cowen’s supporters will say that he is a true Irish patriot who has paid a terrible price for taking hard decisions in the best interests of the country he loves.
His opponents and critics will say he never tried to persuade the people that the course of action he adopted was the right one – and that this was his undoing in the end.
Brian Cowen: A life in politics
Date of Birth: January 10th, 1960, at Clara, Co Offaly.
Educated:Cistercian College, Roscrea; University College Dublin.
Profession:Solicitor.
Family status:Married to Mary (nee Molloy), they have two daughters.
Career:Elected TD for Laois-Offay 1984, in byelection caused by death of his father, Bernard "Ber"' Cowen TD (1932-1984). Minister for labour 1992-1993; minister for transport, energy and communications 1993-1994; minister for health and children 1997-2000; minister for foreign affairs 2000-2004; minister for finance 2004-2008 (tánaiste 2007-2008). Elected Taoiseach May 2008.