The row over gender equality in the Irish cabinet is far less relevant than how well Leo Varadkar’s chosen few run the country.
If Leo Varadkar thought he’d be given the luxury of a honeymoon period, he was sorely mistaken.
The country’s 14th Taoiseach took a couple of days to ride the swell of international acclaim over the fact that he would become the first openly gay man to lead the Irish nation.
He figuratively (and near literally, for want of a suitable staircase) tapdanced through a press conference with Theresa May, full in the knowledge that he was only the second most hated politician in the room.
Varadkar became the international symbol of Ireland’s new cosmopolitan age; that the queer son of an Indian immigrant could rise to the highest office in a country so recently under the thumb of Mother Church became the wow story of the New York Times, The Guardian’s leftist wet dream, and whatever the diddly-fuck this was from the BBC.
Of course, we saw things differently in Ireland.
We saw, and see, Varadkar for the often cunning and manipulative yet charismatic career politician that he is. His origin story, as well as that of his sexuality, seen for the irrelevancies that they are.
Well done us.
Varadkar’s cabinet appointments won few friends but, crucially, fewer enemies than he could have expected if he’d cut a swathe through the legacy of his immediate predecessor.
Much like a Premier League manager taking on a job in February, Varadkar knew that the ever tenuous nature of his party’s hold on power in a minority government would prevent him from rocking the boat too much.
He would stick with the formula according to Enda, at least until an already frayed relationship with Fianna Fáil or a Theresa May-like crisis of hubris would bring about a General Election over the autumn or winter months.
Already, the decision to appoint former Attorney General Máire Whelan to the Court of Appeal has brought accusations of ‘cronyism’ and tattle of in-fighting within Fine Gael, the first true test of Varadkar’s premiership and his decision to keep Frances Fitzgerald – strongly criticised for her handling of Whelan’s appointment – as his Tánaiste.
Whether or not the Whelan controversy becomes heavy enough to bring this current government down, and it’s unlikely, Varadkar will lose no sleep over accusations of sexism in his cabinet appointments.
On Wednesday, the party came out fighting against accusations that they were not doing their part for gender equality in politics.
With six of 11 elected female Fine Gael TDs at cabinet level, the party knew that this was one argument they stood a chance of winning…
‘An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has maintained the highest number of female Cabinet Ministers in the history of the State – first achieved in July 2014. Currently, there are four female full Cabinet Ministers, including the Tánaiste, and in addition, a female Super Junior Minister who sits at Cabinet,’ read a statement.
‘Of the 11 Fine Gael female TDs, six are either Ministers or Junior Ministers, including the Super Junior Minister, meaning 55% of Fine Gael female TDs occupy senior Government positions. Of the five Fine Gael female TDs who are not Ministers, four are first time TDs.’
…but that they had to come out fighting is reductive in the extreme.
It also runs against the Irish suspicion of Varadkar, and the fact that this nation refused to slap itself on the back for electing a gay man of Indian descent.
We saw the overseas coverage for what it was; window dressing.
We didn’t care then, so the relevance of someone’s gender to how they can affect government policy should not concern us now.
Leo Varadkar’s government will stand and fall by the strengths and the weaknesses of its ministers; by their careerism, empathy, communication skills, budgetary abilities, motivational powers and the whereabouts of their scruples.
None of those traits are unique to any gender, and it’s political correctness gone too far to appoint anyone based on their sex alone. ‘Who they are’ is far less important than ‘what they do’.
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