Cabinet Reshuffle

arcadegame2004

A pity kindof that Seamus Brennan is gone from Transport, but with former-PD Martin Cullen now in charge of that Department, I suppose its fairly likely that the direction towards increased competition in the bus-sector, airport sector, and towards possible privatisation of Aer Lingus will probably continue. I am glad it didn't go to someone on the Left of FF.

I would hope that Mary will use the Health portfolio to promote increased competition in the Health-Insurance industry. I would also call on her to move towards a Health-Service that is affordable in the long run while also cutting down on those evil waiting-lists/times. I still stand by my proposals made on this forum a good while ago for resolving the problems of the Health Service, i.e. tempt more Health-Insurance companies into the Irish market so that premium competition can take a firmer hold. Then move towards compulsory universal health-insurance with means-testing, so that the State's cost-burden with respect to the Health-Service would extend only to the premiums of the very poor. In this situation, hospitals would be getting increased revenue for each patient treated, thus acting as an incentive to treat patients quicker and better. That would cause a drastic fall in waiting-lists and possibly the end of them, ultimately.

I welcome the appointment of a female Agriculture Minister for the first time. That it took so long, however, is a sad indictment of a political-club dominated by men (and I say that as a man).

I am disappointed that Noel Dempsey has been retained in the Cabinet, given his propensity for gaffes and proposing policies as "kites" and then reversing-course when the initial public-reaction is unfavourable.

I have no problems with Dick Roche's appointment. Or O'Dea's. Or Hanafin's.

I hope that Cowen will resist the temptation to throw money at problems e.g. like the Health-Service, in the absence of structural reform necessary to ensure that money is not wasted on excessive pay-benchmarking and officials going on holidays etc.

Villain

Cullen to transport!!! Well at least the roads in Waterford should improve.

I'm not really surprised at any of the Ministers moves, except Brennan's maybe that was a big demotion.

I'm more surprised at the lack of change in Junior Ministers, theres going to be a lot of pissed off backbenchers, and the one big change hasn't gone down well, i.e Jim McDaid is very pissed off!

On a more local note a lot of Carlow will be very disappointed that MJ Nolan didn't get a promotion to Junior Minister, not me though he's a fecking fool. Carlow people feel that they have no real voice in Government and with the National Ploughing Championships in Tullow this week I think they were hoping for some good news. I don't think MJ will hold his seat if carlow doesn't get some investment soon and I can see FG taking it.

De Rebel

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I welcome the appointment of a female Agriculture Minister for the first time. That it took so long, however, is a sad indictment of a political-club dominated by men (and I say that as a man). .

Interesting thing on the gender divide. First Irish government ever to have 3 female cabinet ministers. A long way from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn's breakthrough when she became the first* female cabinet minister in the history of the state (Gaeltacht) in 1979. Sad that 20% (3 out of 15) is something worthy of comment, wonder when we will get to 50%

We are also the only country in the world with 3 cabinet ministers called Mary. Its probably a record. Thankfully Bertie stopped at that point and didn't resurrect O'Rourke to make it 4.

*(Not counting Constance Gore-Booth who was titular Sinn Féin Minister for Labour in 1919-22 which predated the foundation of the state and she spent most of the time in jail.)

Hairy Homer

Typedef wrote:

, I queried a quote from her [Mary Hanafin] "Given at a Microsoft funded conference" where the then Minister for State tried to claim that Open Source Software (aka free software), could cost the State more in the long run.

Not that I question the Minister for State's ability to make such an assertion, but, the national government of Brazil, saw *billlions to be saved* from using Open Source... and never, you know, made any big policy announcements about sticking with Microsoft at a Microsoft funded event.

Funnily enough, I queried the Minister for State about where the Department had "looked into" OSS, as she claimed and the Department, never bothered to reply with "specifics" to my query and instead sent me a reply along the lines of "we understand you support Linux, but...", which of course basically proved to me, that the only "looking" the Minster had done on this issue, was in the Microsoft pamphlet, at the conference !

ComputerScope magazine carries out an annual survey of its readers' (people in IT departments') attitudes to Open Source. Here's a brief piece about public sector adoption of same.

Skip through the waffle to page 2.

Feck it. I'll just print it for you here

it is easy to see why Microsoft welcomed Minister Hanafin's comments on Open Source software. Talking about the government's approach to exploiting technology in the delivery of its own services, she said: 'The assessment of value must..take full account of the totality of costs likely to arise. Confidence in the performance of software may be a relevant consideration. It is relevant to bear in mind that Open Source is open to amendment and reconfiguration, resulting in different flavours of what was originally the same software. These are considerations which must be evaluated and may point to a situation where the long-term costs associated with Open Source may outweigh the short-term benefits.'

Which is a pretty pithy summary of the key arguments put forward by Microsoft, and other software companies, when asked to defend their products against Open Source competitors. However the Minister's comments fall a long way short of a ringing endorsement of proprietary licensed software and ask only that government departments and their agencies evaluate their options carefully before deciding how to implement IT strategies.

Sifting through the data obtained from our survey sheds an interesting light on how far Open Source software has gained acceptance among the public sector, including Government departments and their agencies, state and semi-state bodies, local government, health and education.

Although respondents' identities must remain anonymous we found that the split between those that used Open Source and those that didn't in the public sector reflected the figures of the industry at large: of the 55 organisations we identified in that sector 33 make some use of Open Source and 22 don't, a neat 60-40 split.

Open Source is widely used in education: 17 third-level institutes use it to some degree or other; only two said they didn't. By contrast, the area of local government is completely Open Source averse: of the five town and city councils who answered the survey, not a single one said they were using Open Source software.

Three government departments replied to the survey: two use Open Source software; one doesn't. Government agencies were split fairly neatly on the issue: six of them do use Open Source; eight of them don't.

Of the large state and semi-state enterprises that responded we found that six do use Open Source; two don't and the head of IT of a ninth seems to be unaware of the fact that his organisation does because he says it doesn't whereas one of his subordinates answered to the contrary! It is a trait of Open Source software that it often sneaks into organisations 'unauthorised' by senior personnel who don't know what's there if they haven't signed a budget for it.

dargan

A fourth junior minister has gone to Europe (Liam Alyward).

As far as I know Bertie can't create a new post - it's the government and not Bertie that decides the junior ministries. Could be wrong on that bit though.

vinnyfitz wrote:

RTE reports;
Jim McDaid has resigned as a Minister of State, and five new Ministers of State are to be appointed - Sean Power, Batt O'Keeffe, Tony Killeen, Brendan Smith and Conor Lenihan.

But, only 3 junior ministers have been sent up stairs - Willy, Dick and Mary Hanifin (with Kitt taking a half step up to replace Hanifin as chief whip).

So a second junior is going to have to get the bullet in the morning...or can Bertie just create an extra junior job?

seamus

It is a trait of Open Source software that it often sneaks into organisations 'unauthorised' by senior personnel who don't know what's there if they haven't signed a budget for it.

I'd say a good deal of it too is not being totally aware of what defines Open Source stuff. In the last example given, the manager may be thinking "Open Source, no all our stuff is Microsoft, we've no Linux or Unix stuff, so no.", while his subordinate is thinking, "Well, we do run Windows as the OS on every machine, but our internal web server runs on Apache, so yes we do use Open Source."

Way off topic.

dargan

I think Lenihans problem is that
(a) Apparently Bertie doesn't like him
and
(b) he's in a constituency that won't get another FFer in (has a strong FG candidate) so no pointin wasting a ministry there. Sad for lenihan but that's politics!

jlang wrote:

What about Brian Lenihan? He was rumoured to be up for Chief Whip so I'm surprised not to see him get at least a Junior post. I wonder if geographical reasons were to blame?

star gazer

originally posted by toffeeman
There are to be four new ministers of state; Sean Power, Batt O'Keeffe, Brendan Smith and Conor Lenihan.

plus Tony Killeen, Clare

originally posted by vf
But, only 3 junior ministers have been sent up stairs - Willy, Dick and Mary Hanifin (with Kitt taking a half step up to replace Hanifin as chief whip).
So a second junior is going to have to get the bullet in the morning...or can Bertie just create an extra junior job?

The euro elections gave us the extra position with liam Aylward dropping his junior ministry and with McDaid going it gives five new junior places.

luckat

Before Máire Bán starts privatising any airlines she should take a look at Argentina. One of the richest countries in the world in the 1930s, it slid gradually to the point when it sold off its national airline to a Spanish giant; this was the signal for it to finally tip over the edge. The airline was quickly asset-stripped of its best routes and resold.

It wasn't a *central* part of Argentina's avalanche into poverty, but it was a deeply symbolic part of that horrible progression.

It's scary the way our government wants to sell off the parts of our infrastructure most vital to our national interest. And they sell themselves as a business-friendly government!

hewlett

jlang wrote:

What about Brian Lenihan? He was rumoured to be up for Chief Whip so I'm surprised not to see him get at least a Junior post. I wonder if geographical reasons were to blame?

Brian Lenihan is already a junior minister, he has been Minister of State with responsibility for Children covering several departments since 2002. It was rumoured that he may be promoted but obviously he hasn't so he remains a junior.

Nuttzz

PH01 wrote:

[
Willie O'Dea - Defence
Had to put Willie somewhere and no better place than defence. Like what's worst that could happen? Stop US Army flights through Shannon?

What makes you think that?


http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=909661&issue_id=8685

"Putting the US, with its many failings and flaws, and the UN on one side and the blood-stained dictatorship of Iraq on the other, he was unashamedly on America's side, he added."

"It was a little-known fact that during the Cuban missile crisis of 1961 Soviet troops "of that evil empire" on the way to Cuba to assist in firing nuclear missiles at the US were allowed refuel at Shannon. "I doubt they were acting under UN mandate," Mr O'Dea told TDs."

"Are we prepared to turn our backs on all the American assistance we have got in the past, the assistance we will need in the future, and give the two fingers to US investment in this country? It would be cutting off our nose to spite our face "for one day's headlines while the Americans are slightly inconvenienced."

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

AngelofFire

Shuffle the Pack, but the jokers stay the same.

Victor

Notably both ministers in transport (Brennan and McDaid) are gone.

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Then move towards compulsory universal health-insurance with means-testing, so that the State's cost-burden with respect to the Health-Service would extend only to the premiums of the very poor.

Doesn't that sound awfully like corporate welfare?

Nuttzz wrote:

"It was a little-known fact that during the Cuban missile crisis of 1961 Soviet troops "of that evil empire" on the way to Cuba to assist in firing nuclear missiles at the US were allowed refuel at Shannon. "I doubt they were acting under UN mandate," Mr O'Dea told TDs."

[Dougal voice] "Did the Russians nuke America, Ted? I never heard of that. Ted, did they? Ted?"[/Dougal voice]