Simon Harris is about to face an early test in his new role as Minister for Finance that will give him an opportunity to prove his critics wrong or else confirm their doubts. The test will come in the shape of the response to the report of the taskforce on infrastructure, which concluded its deliberations on Thursday.
Since his move to Finance, political opponents and a slew of commentators have cast doubt on Harris’s ability to perform in his new role. It has even been suggested that his lack of academic credentials in economics makes him unfit for the position.
On this point, it is worth recalling that one of the best ministers for finance in the history of the State was Ray MacSharry, who not only didn’t have a Leaving Cert but was reputed to have left school without even his Intermediate Certificate. By contrast Martin O’Donoghue, a professor of economics in Trinity College who drafted much of the 1977 Fianna Fáil manifesto and went on to become minister for economic planning, devised the policies that drove the country into a decade-long recession.
The crucial attributes for a minister for finance are courage and political judgment rather than academic qualifications. Time will tell whether Harris has the required qualities but in order to succeed he will need to adopt a very different political style to the one that has characterised him to date.
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Much of the criticism of him has been based on his image as the TikTok Tánaiste, who has been ever-present in the social and traditional media. His energy and articulateness have made him a constant presence in the 24-hour news cycle, but this overexposure has now become a liability, particularly with older voters.
In his new role, he needs to get out of the media spotlight and demonstrate an ability to make tough decisions and stick with them. If he can do that, Finance could be the making of him – and the Coalition.
How he responds to the infrastructure taskforce plan will be an early signal of whether he is up to the job. During the general election campaign last year, he rightly identified infrastructure as a key issue that needs to be addressed to ensure that the country can maintain its current level of prosperity for future generations.
He advocated the establishment of a new Department of Infrastructure, but the idea was opposed by Fianna Fáil during the Coalition negotiations as well as by senior civil servants, who argued that it would take too long to establish a new department with the inevitable turf wars involved.
Instead, a high-powered infrastructure taskforce was set up under the chairmanship of one of Ireland’s most successful businessmen, former Glen Dimplex boss Sean O’Driscoll. Its remit was to examine why developments critical to solving the housing crisis have been subject to interminable delays and to suggest ways the system can be reformed.
The taskforce has now come up with a blueprint for action. The signs are that it will not be the usual set of woolly recommendations that can be ignored by the Government or referred to some interdepartmental committee, but a detailed plan with specific measures designed to get to the root of the problem.
The model is the Action Plan for Jobs, which was established by Enda Kenny when he became taoiseach in 2011. Its rigorous implementation saw the jobless figures being cut from more than 15 per cent of the working population when Kenny took office to less than 5 per cent when he departed.
The core of the current problem is that our planning system is preventing rather than facilitating the building of infrastructure and housing. The defects in the system are magnified by an outmoded legal system that makes it far too easy for objectors to create interminable delays and add huge costs to developments or even block them entirely.
The latest delay to the long-overdue Dublin metro plan is a case in point, but it is part of a pattern that has seen the building of new water infrastructure in north Dublin delayed for almost a decade, with no obvious end in sight. The result is that so many of the houses the country so urgently requires cannot be built.
Although the taskforce has provided a roadmap for dealing with the problem, political leadership will be required to ensure it is implemented. It will be no surprise if many of those who have been so loudly denouncing the Government for failing to solve the housing crisis are the first to oppose the plan.
Harris and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, who is responsible for implementing the taskforce’s recommendations, will both need to display the resolve of a MacSharry to ensure their Cabinet colleagues are on board and the public is on side.
“Reform consists in taking a bone from a dog,” commented American writer John Jay Chapman more than a century ago. Harris and Chambers need to brace themselves for the bites but, if they deliver on the plan, they will have done the State some service.
