Stephen Collins: Varadkar cannot afford to drop veterans

Leo Varadkar’s dilemma about who to drop and who to promote to Cabinet is giving him his first taste of what it is like to be a party leader with the responsibility for making decisions that will inevitably provoke resentment and even anger among some of his strongest supporters.

Speaking after winning the leadership of Fine Gael last Friday, Varadkar raised the hopes of his younger backers in the parliamentary party when he spoke of the need for generational change.

Implementing that promise will be the difficult part. The names of older Cabinet members like Frances Fitzgerald, Charlie Flanagan and Richard Bruton are being bandied about by younger Fine Gael TDs as candidates for the political scrap heap but Varadkar will have to think long and hard about dropping any of them.

Uncertain political times

Each has done a good job for party and country over the past few years and has developed the kind of experience that will be needed in the uncertain political times ahead.

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With the departure of Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan depriving the Cabinet of its two most experienced and canny operators, Varadkar cannot afford to discard other political veterans simply on age grounds.

He would do well to recall the fate of Albert Reynolds who, like him, took over as party leader and taoiseach in 1992 after effectively pushing his predecessor, Charlie Haughey, out of office.

Reynolds immediately dropped eight senior ministers and promoted a lot of new blood to the cabinet, pleasing his young supporters but making a lot of implacable and powerful enemies in the process.

When he hit a political roadblock 2½ years later he was despatched ruthlessly before his loyal young ministers like Brian Cowen and Noel Dempsey knew what had happened.

Varadkar will also need to be conscious of the need to keep his leadership rival Simon Coveney on side without making him too powerful. By winning a handsome victory among the party members, and his impressive performances at the hustings, Coveney has set himself up as a figure of significance in the party prompting speculation that he will be offered the Tánaiste’s position.

The new taoiseach will have to weigh up the need to bind up the divisions resulting from the contest with the danger of making his rival an alternative figure of authority in the party. He will have to make a judgment on whether Coveney is more likely to be a truculent Gordon Brown type deputy leader or a loyal Richard Bruton type figure.

There are no easy answers to any of these questions but one thing Varadkar needs to beware of is pandering too much to the impatient younger TDs clamouring for promotion.

Drop Simon Harris

In particular he needs to resist pressure to drop Simon Harris for having the temerity to support Coveney. Harris is one of the outstanding members of the Cabinet and a potential future leader and this is probably what has inspired such jealousy among some of his young colleagues. Dropping him would send out all the wrong signals on day one.

As well as finding the right balance for the Cabinet in terms of youth and experience the new taoiseach will also have to resist the desire of some of his more excitable supporters to plunge the country into an early general election.

One of Varadkar’s perceived strengths among his parliamentary colleagues is his determination not to be pushed around by Fianna Fáil. While he is publicly committed to honouring the confidence and supply arrangement that put the Government in place there are many potential flashpoints ahead.

Many Fine Gael TDs and a good number of Fianna Fáil as well have become totally disenchanted with the way the Dáil is operating and there is a hankering in both parties for the days of government with a secure majority. That mood could prompt either party to risk the consequences of a confrontation that could spill over into an election.

The other side of the coin is that neither party wants to be the one that gets blamed by the public for causing it so there will be a lot of manoeuvring for position ahead of the budget in the autumn.

The experience of Theresa May in going for an early general election in the UK in what seemed like the ideal circumstances will have given everybody pause for thought. It is a classic illustration of how an election campaign can end up by surprising the people called it in the first place.

Fine Gael TDs only have to recall how the 2016 general election campaign ran away from them in an entirely unexpected fashion to be wary of what can happen to governments regardless of their record.

Still, the current unworkable Dáil cannot last for another 3½ years so the only question is when will it be put out of its misery, either by accident or design. While the new taoiseach is unlikely to take the risk of calling an election in the next few months, he might not be too worried about avoiding one if Fianna Fáil tries to raise the stakes.