Cullen facing the guillotine as Bertie cosies up to Rabbitte

Poor Martin Cullen! If a week is the proverbial long time in politics he must be blinking in bewilderment at the rapidity of his fall. Widely tipped for demotion in the Government reshuffle in September (not least by myself) he was actually promoted to Minister for Transport. But he now finds himself on the edge of political destruction.

It is now known that Cullen was indeed due for demotion in September: he was pencilled in to go to Social Welfare, with Séamus Brennan to be dropped altogether and Brian Lenihan brought in to manage Transport.

We now know, too, that Brennan fought against this with all his might, enlisting the support of Mary Harney in his battle, and threatening to resign and force a by-election that Fianna Fáil would almost certainly lose.

This was a last minute complication that Bertie Ahern hadn't calculated for, and time was bought by giving Brennan the slot intended for Cullen, explaining to a strangely disciplined Brian Lenihan that he would have to wait and giving Cullen the plum job of Transport.

Bertie was obviously unhappy with all of this, and warned all ministers that there could be no room for messing up. He wanted no scandals; he wanted no demands for inquiries, and anyone who stepped out of line could expect to stand on his or her own.

The inquiries going on now will clarify what was really involved in the Monica Leech affair, but this all relates to Cullen's time in Environment. Why should it surface now?

My information is that Bertie specifically asked Cullen before he gave him the Transport brief whether there were any problems in the woodwork, and was assured that there were not.

Bertie is in no mood now to take a broad view when he considers that Cullen might have misled him.

But on Cullen's part, this assumes that he knew or accepts that he did wrong, and there is no sign of that at this stage.

It is also worth remembering that the reason for shifting Brennan from Transport was that Bertie was unhappy about the reckless way that Brennan had upset the unions in dealing with Aer Rianta, Aer Lingus and CIE.

In Bertie's view these were all problems that could have been handled more sensitively, and that's what Brian Lenihan was primed to do.

While there was considerable surprise when Cullen was announced as the man to replace Brennan it is hard to say that he has mishandled his brief in the short period he has had it.

Certainly the word is the Government sub-committee is going to recommend what amounts to part privatisation; but Bertie himself is a member of that committee and it's hard to see the recommendation going through against his wishes.

Perhaps he wanted Cullen to fight his corner for him!

Either way indications are that the information concerning the Monica Leech affair originated in the Taoiseach's office.

And clearly Bertie made it quite obvious in the Dáil that Cullen was on his own on this one. It is also worth noting that the Taoiseach has been in close contact with Labour leader Pat Rabbitte about how to handle this controversy, and that a quite cosy understanding has been reached between the two of them.

This cosiness and Bertie's new-found concern for the proprieties bodes ill for Cullen's future. Of course the inquiries will have to run their course, and Cullen will be given a fair trial before being convicted; but it's hard to see Bertie going as far as he has if he intended to give Cullen a reprieve at the last minute.

Cullen must be like a man standing in the tumbrel in revolutionary France on his way to the guillotine wondering if his friends will rally to save him.

But Cullen's problem is that he few friends. The PDs regard him as a turncoat and would be delighted by his demise; Fianna Fáilers regard him as a Johnny-come-lately who isn't really one of theirs.

And of course he hasn't even had his head chopped off yet, but the jockeying for his job is already underway. The front-runner here must be Lenihan, the man originally intended for the job. Certainly, Lenihan did himself no harm by taking his displacement without complaint or rancour. And if the gratitude of princes is notoriously uncertain, he's still owed one now.

But who knows? Perhaps Cullen will survive.

It's going to be an interesting few weeks for us, and fraught few weeks for him before we find out when the Dáil resumes on 26 January.

Eoin Ó Murchú is the Eagraí Polaitíochta of RTÉ Raidio na Gaeltachta. He is writing here in a personal capacity.