Legal eagles and government simply don’t mix

The Greens have been in therapy for a week now, and there is little evidence of their collective nervous breakdown abating.

Involuntary electro-convulsive treatment may be the only remedy, and Fianna Fáil is outside with the jumpstart paraphernalia.

(Mary McAleese has signed the consent order in the absence of the Greens’ capacity to make any informed decision themselves.)

(Picture: Most barristers can't run anything, aside from themselves)

The ‘rotating ministers’ plan seems quite crazy and, coming from the Greens, the presumption is that the plan is just that: crazy. But for normal politics, it might be quite a good idea. Let me explain.

The conception of ministers being chief executives of their departments is ludicrous. Almost none of them has any clue how to run anything. If our system of government hinges on the managerial capacities of our elected representatives, we are in deep trouble .This has always been the case.

Did WT Cosgrave have any capacity to run anything? Did Eamon deValera? John Costello had no pretension to executive competence. He was a very successful barrister, but have barristers ever been able to run anything, aside from themselves? Many of them can’t even do that. They had to take the administration of the courts service away from the judges because judges can’t run anything either.

Seán Lemass was an exception who could run things. He managed the Irish Press from 1948 to 1951 and, had he concentrated on only that from 1948 onwards, he almost certainly would have made a huge commercial success of it.

His successor as taoiseach, Jack Lynch, a barrister, proved conclusively my contention about barristers. It was Lynch’s huge incompetence that contributed massively to the Arms Crisis fiasco of 1970.There was badness there on the part of others too, but if Lynch had been able to run even the cabinet, there would have been no crisis.

Liam Cosgrave, another barrister, did nothing to prove the falsity of my contention regarding barristers.

Then there was Charles Haughey, who was exceptional in being a competent taoiseach in spite of having been called to the Bar. But, it should be noted, he never practised at the Bar.

You might have expected that Garret FitzGerald would have escaped the curse of the Law Library, for he too was called to the Bar and never practised. But FitzGerald found ways all of his own to be thoroughly incapable of running anything.

Albert Reynolds was unencumbered by any exposure to the law, although he was in the Four Courts often enough. He ran a pet-food factory and dancehalls, and knew how to run a Department. Did any of the current crowd run a pet-food factory or a dancehall?

After Reynolds came John Bruton, who was also called to the Bar, never practised, but got the virus anyway. After him, Bertie. ’Nuff said. And now a Birr solicitor, who never even ran a solicitor’s office. Anyway, my point is that politicians can’t run anything.

Most of the above were around for ages, ran - or, rather, didn’t run - a succession of Departments, and were hopeless. But it didn’t matter for, in reality, they weren’t running the Departments. The civil servants were, and the civil servants - for the most part, or some of the part - prevented the ministers from doing much damage.

The point I am hoping to get to is that the pretence should be ended that politicians run Departments.

They are not elected to run Departments, or even run the country. 

They are elected to decide what policies should be enacted by the professional executive branch of government, and how the professional executive branch of government should be held accountable for implementing policies that politicians decide should be implemented.

There has been a lot of talk of late about how our government would be better off if we had the likes of Michael O’Leary or Bill Cullen taking the decisions. Absolutely not.

It is the people themselves - directly or through their elected representatives - who should take decisions, and the professionals who should execute the decisions.

The problem with the current arrangement is that elected politicians take almost no decisions, but pretend to act as high-powered executives - a role for which, almost by definition, they are entirely unsuited.

I say that most politicians take no decisions. This is because the Dáil is impotent. The 15-member cabinet of the day takes all the decisions, and the Dáil rubber-stamps them. Those in cabinet taking decisions think that their primary role is running corporations, not collectively taking policy decisions.

There is no reason to think that experience in taking collective policy decisions in cabinet makes one any better at taking cabinet collective policy decisions. So what’s the problem with rotation?

The problem is that politics is about jobs. To a large extent, that’s all that politics is about now.

The jobs are ministerial jobs, big high-powered jobs, with executive jets, full-time minders, cars and chauffeurs. Daily deference. Cups of tea. The Greens could be on to something, if their depression ever lifts.