Taoiseach to look outside Dáil when picking ministers

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has promised he will look outside the Dáil when it comes to picking ministers if he leads the next government.

In a Christmas interview with political correspondents he indicated he would invoke the provision that exists in the Constitution to appoint people to the Seanad with a view to making them ministers. He said he would give “serious consideration in particular circumstances to the facility that exists within the Senate for the appointment of particular kinds of people who might be able to do a particular job, as happened before, back in the time of the late Garret FitzGerald.”

There have been a number of suggestions in recent years that the government would be strengthened if experts in a particular field were appointed as cabinet ministers, a process that happens in many European democracies. The Constitution permits the taoiseach of the day to appoint two ministers from the Seanad. As the taoiseach is permitted to nominate 11 members of the Seanad it enables the holder of the office to bring in people from outside the political system. This provision has only been used twice in the history of the State.

On his election as taoiseach in 1981, Dr FitzGerald announced he intended to appoint the professor of engineering at UCD, Jim Dooge, as one of his nominees to the Seanad with a view to making him minister for foreign affairs. Prof Dooge, who had previously been cathaoirleach of the Seanad, served as a successful minister for foreign affairs in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government of 1981-1982. He was not reappointed as a cabinet minister when Dr FitzGerald returned to office after the November 1982 election, mainly due to opposition from Fine Gael backbenchers.