Coalition, but how will the Cabinet look?
My gut feeling is Labour will get six ministries, the most important of all being Finance. There will be a new ministry for Public Service Reform and that should go to Fine Gael, maybe Richard Bruton. That will be Fine Gael's terms for giving Labour the Finance brief.
On the next Minister for Finance, what I said previously about Pat Rabbitte and his Mayo relationship with Enda Kenny all still stands and I'd still be a big layer of Michael Noonan at 1.18 on Betfair. I think Michael Noonan might be in Justice. I think that there will be three Cabinet females - Roisin Shortall, Joan Burton and Frances Fitzgerald. It wouldn't surprise me if Joan Burton got Education although, if Richard Bruton doesn't get Public Service Reform, he might get Education. I think Phil Hogan will be Minister for Environment. I think the new Minister for Foreign Affairs will be Ruairi Quinn, because I think he will have his eye on being the next EU Commissioner and I think they will want to develop the Socialist links. He was very committed at the time of the Lisbon Treaty and is a real Europhile. Also, he is an older guy and may not want to stand in the next election. And don't be surprised if this is Enda Kenny's last election, as well as being a lot of TDs' last election, if the government runs the full five years.
Those who don't get Cabinet positions may be well be promised a major reshuffle after two and a half years, like was done with the Greens in 2007, to keep them on board.
James Reilly should get Health and the Department that Gilmore himself takes will be interesting. It would not surprise me if he went for Communications, Energy or something like that. Fine Gael will want the Enterprise portfolio, and it will be very interesting to see where that goes. Richard Bruton was in there before and may fancy another go, although Leo Varadkar might be in hunt for that.
I have not mentioned to many people outside of Dublin yet but Michael Ring might be in the hunt to be Minister for Defence. Enda will want to do something for the West of Ireland and for Mayo, who gave him four out five seats.
The way I see the week unfolding is that there will be a news blackout, there will be talks up to Friday and the two parties will try to finalise a document on Saturday. Enda Kenny is going to Helsinki on Friday and I think there is a meeting of the European Socialist Party leaders that Gilmore will be attending.
The Labour party will have to present a document to a party conference for approval. There could be a little bit of high stakes around this and they may leave it until Tuesday 8th and have a meeting in the Mansion House as the Greens did. But at that stage, once the party leaders have signed off on it, it will happen and there will be little difficulty in getting it ratified in my opinion. All eyes will then be on Wednesday the 9th March, the day the Dail reconvenes. Brendan Howlin or Sean Barrett are my favourites to become the next Ceann Comhairle, although there may be some constituency considerations here.
At the end of the day, my sense of it is, that the Cabinet selection will be delivered with a deal of suspense. There are always a few surprises. But the basic spread as I see it will be nine FG to six Labour or maybe even 10:5. But you know Fine Gael don't have the numbers to form a government without Labour, even at 76 TDs, because if you look at the texture of the Independents (even if they were organised into a cohesive group), there are more Left Wing Independents than Right Wing Independents and it just wouldn't work.
So at the end of the day, on the key ministries, I'm calling it; Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore & Finance will be Pat Rabbitte in my opinion. And there is a small chance that Michael Noonan might be in Foreign Affairs, as Fine Gael will want that. But I think that the quid pro quo of Finance going to Labour will be the Justice, Enterprise and Employment brief will definitely be going to Fine Gael.
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