Ireland’s government. Bertie’s bolster

A reshuffle meant to boost the government's support

IT HAS been a good week for Bertie Ahern, the Irish taoiseach (prime minister). On September 29th he announced a long-awaited cabinet reshuffle. And two days later his former colleague in the Fianna Fail party, Mary McAleese, looked certain to be re-elected as Ireland's president, after opposition parties failed to find a candidate.

The reshuffle is intended to revive the government's flagging popularity, by changing ministers, but without changing policies too much. It saw all but three of the 14 cabinet ministers switch their responsibilities. Mr Ahern's hope seemed to be to give his centre-right coalition a less harsh, and more caring, public image.

These changes came three months after Fianna Fail, which heads the coalition, suffered its biggest electoral reversal in decades in local and European elections. The finance minister, Charlie McCreevy, became the scapegoat for the party's mid-term setback. Somewhat reluctantly, he accepted the job of European commissioner in charge of the single market. As expected, his replacement is Brian Cowen, previously foreign minister. The new foreign minister is Dermot Ahern (no relation), formerly communications minister. Mr Cowen's move leaves him the clear favourite to become the taoiseach's successor as Fianna Fail leader.

The government's main challenge has been to regain the public trust that it lost after its re-election in 2002. Mr McCreevy then broke his pre-election pledge neither to raise taxes nor to cut spending. Instead he introduced “stealth” tax increases and tough spending curbs. A disillusioned public felt cheated, and last June took revenge on Fianna Fail at the ballot box.

In fact Mr McCreevy is leaving his successor a remarkable legacy: an economy in fine fettle. The latest official forecasts suggest that the economy will grow by some 4.2% this year. Unemployment will average only 4.5%. And the budget deficit will be a manageable 0.4% of GDP. The healthy state of the public finances leaves Mr Cowen the scope to bring in tax cuts for the low-paid, as a step towards regaining public support for the government.

The big surprise of the reshuffle, however, concerned the tanaiste (deputy prime minister), Mary Harney, who is leader of the free-market Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fail's coalition partner. She is to swap her job as minister for enterprise for the daunting challenge of health, a graveyard of political reputations. This leaves the Progressive Democrats without an economic department, and thus with less influence in government. And as Ms Harney may be minded to try what nobody else has managed, to force structural reforms on Ireland's inefficient health service, her move could yet test the cohesion of Mr Ahern's new-look cabinet.

• Primary Source