Last week: Two Minors bite the dust. This Week : A Major-Minor. Next Week : Cabinet Shake-up?

If last week’s drama was about two minor politicians falling on their swords, this week supplied the end of a major-minor political career. ‘Major’ in the sense that Willie O’Dea was a Cabinet Minister, ‘minor’ in that one would be hard-pressed to root out any achievement of national significance in his long political career since O’Dea arrived in Dail Eireann almost thirty years ago.

Intellectually smart, as his educational attainments testify; extremely witty, especially when such wit was directed at his political opponents; politically savvy, well he certainly had the pulse of his Limerick East constituency if 19,082 first preference votes in the 2007 general election are anything to go by, Willie had to wait a while before his front bench talents were fully appreciated.

He was already celebrating his tenth anniversary as a citizens’ representative when he was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Justice in 1992, a posting extended to Health in 1993 before the FF/Labour Coalition crashed the following year. On FF’s return to government under Bertie Ahern in 1997, there were stints as a Junior in the Departments of Education and the back to Justice before he was elevated to the top table as Minister for Defence in September 2004.

Thus he has served time in a variety of Departments, without, so far as I can ascertain, ever making much of an impression on public policy in any one of them. A record of achievement best summed up, perhaps, as : A lot to say, but not much done.

Watching the day’s histrionics unfold on TV in a largely deserted pub last evening, my companion laughed uproariously as the taped version of Willie’s infamous interview with the Limerick journalist was played over on the six o’clock news bulletin, yet again.

We agreed he was a political gurrier. We agreed that politicians go mad during election campaigns, especially election campaigns in which they, or their parties, face a difficult struggle. We acknowledged that the degree of their insanity relates to how clinically deranged they were to start with. We further agreed that, in our own tme and experience, we had heard as bad, if not worse, from some of Willie’s foremost Dail accusers, who were just damned lucky that there wasn’t ever a reporter with a microphone around when they were spouting calumny and detraction that would put Willie’s own disgraceful smears in the ha’penny place.

We could agree too that if Willie went, then no more than the celebrity journalist-turned- politician whose name escaped us momentarily, or that Green ex-Senator WhatsHerName, after a week or so nobody would miss him much except perhaps Brian Cowen. That is, the Taoiseach for not being disloyal to his own people in FF or his own people in Laois-Offaly before any and every other consideration. And who would have to, now, finally, get on with that long overdue reshuffle of his tired and wearisome Praetorian Guard.

For by far the most interesting aftermath of the Williegate shenanigans, far more interesting than the Green Party “there’s more to come” twittering subplot,  or Chief Enda’s making it to the front of the stage in the ‘chief executioner’  role and finally elbowing his Labour counterpart out of the limelight – for the present anyway – on that most sacred of all Dail business of inflicting political pain on the government parties, has been the heartfelt cry from Fianna Fail activists all around the country for a change in the top team.

All over the airwaves throughout the day, there’s no doubting the demand among the party faithful for a clear-out of much of the present Cabinet and ‘new faces’ in the ranks of Government. ‘New faces,’ it appears,  competent in the business of  job creation and enterprise generation and the stimulation of economic activity. Cowen’s stubborn loyalty, most particularly to a Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment whose command of her portfolio is now beyond a national joke, is set to be tested.

 A serious reshuffle is the least of what’s required now. It also needs to happen soon, withput undue delay, if the confidence of Cowen’s own party faithful in his leadership is to be maintained. There can be no doubt either that what happened over the course of this week is symptomatic of the volatility of the present coalition arrangement; of a Green Party edging ever closer, however reluctantly, towards the sign marked ‘Exit’, with a general election soon to follow.

The question is, which  will come first, the reshuffle or the final break-up?