Who Gets What?

Its is all eyes on Cowen now as Bertie signals the end of his time at the top with today’s events in the Boyne Valley. Most interesting will be the signals sent to those who were thought to be his competitors in the leadership race - Michael Martin, Dermot Ahern and, to a lesser extent, Noel Dempsey and Mary Hanafin.

The placing of Brian Lenihan in relation to these four will likely shape the party’s dynamic in the coming years in much the same way the accession of Cowen to Finance did in the previous administration. If Lenihan is promoted to Dublin’s top-dog it will be a blow to Hanafin in the Dublin area and position him nicely for the next leadership contest.

Martin and Ahern will also need to be accommodated, moving either to Finance and Lenihan to Tanaiste appears to be the received wisdom, although Coughlan will have earned any promotion she gets (as one half of the pair that nominated Cowen her rise is almost odds-on). What is most interesting is to see what fresh blood, if any, the party put forward. It is the Local elections next year and then focus shifts to Fianna Fail winning a fourth term in office.

For them to avoid the trap of looking and being stale (arguably the latter may already have set in), fresh blood and some few people with a few ideas will be needed. The electorate are perfectly entitled to vote against you simply because they are sick of you and any new power structure in Fianna Fail would do well to have a number of ambitious youths apparently over-achieving.

This would give hope to other back-benchers that they can rise through the ranks quickly and prompt action from Ministers who might feel untouchable.

Who will get what do we reckon? And what about Mary Harney?