The Cowen years

Peter Cheney looks back over the former Taoiseach’s career, highlighting his successes and failures.

His was a very traditional upbringing, a very Irish start to a political career and a rise and fall which matched the country’s fortunes under his watch.

The twelfth Taoiseach learnt much about human nature in the family pub. A club footballer and hurler, he was born into a political lineage; his father Bernard was a Fianna Fáil TD and his grandfather helped to found the party.

Success came early but painfully for a young solicitor, on Bernard’s death. ‘Biffo’ entered the Dáil in the ensuing Laois-Offaly by-election on 14 June 1984. Loyalty to Albert Reynolds was rewarded with the Minister for Labour post in 1992, followed by the energy and transport briefs in quick succession.

In opposition, he spoke mainly on agriculture before moving to health in March 1997. That led naturally to holding the brief in government, which he termed “Angola” i.e. a minefield of problems. Progress in any health ministry is hard to measure, but it helped cut his smoking to “practically nil”. Speaking to Hotpress magazine in 2007, Cowen recounted how he “did inhale” marijuana in his student days but “there wasn’t a whole lot in it really”.

Foreign affairs came next, from 2000 to 2004. Priorities included stewarding the Northern peace process and welcoming 10 new EU members during Ireland’s presidency. The state maintained its traditional neutrality in the Iraq War, although US military transports passed through Shannon.

Republicanism has a deep resonance for Cowen, with Fianna Fáil seeing themselves as the true ‘republican party’. As Taoiseach, he would occasionally intervene in the North. The 2010 Hillsborough Agreement helped to secure the transfer of justice powers, and stabilised the troubled Executive.

Then to finance, where he was seen as more reserved than Charlie McCreevy. Cowen could be tough in negotiations, but was also gregarious and closer to the party TDs than Bertie Ahern. The Celtic Tiger kept roaring and property boomed, as observers would ominously note in the bust.

As the pressure increased on Ahern, Cowen was widely credited with turning around the 2007 election campaign. However, Fine Gael re-emerged as a serious opposition. Promotion as Tánaiste followed, and Ahern’s increasing troubles saw Cowen emerge as the safe successor. He was in his element in the chamber on assuming the office of Taoiseach on 7 May 2008.

Premiership

A “genuine sense of humility” on the occasion was “engendered in large part from a love of Ireland”. Fittingly, he noted how the island “has come to enjoy the richness of peace with no strife or agitation from past hostilities”.

To a religious family man, the “rising tendency towards individualism” in society was a challenge to confront. Government’s responsibility was to “fuel the engine of community”. The new Taoiseach committed himself “completely” to meeting the expectations of office, and would very quickly find how high that bar was set.

It was the briefest of honeymoons. Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty on 12 June, in a snub to Europe after years of generosity. In fairness, the Republic was the only state to test the treaty democratically and its vagueness helped opponents. Lisbon was eventually passed at the polls in more desperate times.

Global economic tremors were now rattling Ireland’s lightly regulated banks. The property crash pushed the Government into guaranteeing the banks and sent the state into recession. Ever- growing bail-out sums and ever-tighter budgets increased the sense of crisis.

That year’s European and local elections only confirmed the slide, with Fianna Fáil hit badly and the Greens virtually wiped out. Floods, freezes and Nama compounded the pressure as 2009 ended. Austerity pleased the invisible markets but incensed the visible electorate. By September 2010, rising bail-out costs (up to €45 billion) had set the deficit on course for 32 per cent of GDP.

Accusations of economic treason stung deeply and he warned Eamon Gilmore that “anger in itself is not a policy.’’

The haggard Morning Ireland interview damaged his credibility and, after many denials, the announced IMF-EU bail-out proved to be the final blow politically.

Historian Diarmaid Ferriter thinks that Cowen “fatally faltered” by lacking the necessary dignity and empathy required of a national leader in an emergency. Sympathisers lamented the Taoiseach’s bad luck but history suggests that a crisis brings out the best in a leader. That said, Ferriter holds back from blaming Cowen for all his Government’s failings; instead his leadership would remembered as the “culmination of disastrous policy decisions made by many over an extended period.”

Endgame

The closing days of the Dáil were a political rollercoaster by any measure.

Firstly, the Fitzpatrick Tapes revealed two undisclosed contacts between Cowen and disgraced banker Seán FitzPatrick. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin recalled spotting the two men after a round of golf. To Cowen, this was a social event and there was an “absurd sense of puritanism” in not meeting bankers. However, the revelation added to the perception of Fianna Fáil colluding with the banks.

Pressure on his leadership mounted, with Micheál Martin unsuccessfully standing against him on 18 January. An attempted reshuffle backfired disastrously when the Greens withheld their support, forcing the remaining ministers to double up their portfolios on 20 January.

A “sense of disintegration” prevailed, according to Gilmore. Cowen conceded an election, and announced his own resignation as Fianna Fáil leader on 22 January. The Greens left government the following day.

Cowen had been expected to run again in Laois-Offaly, given his local popularity, so his decision (on 31 January) to bow out came as a surprise. It was a major u-turn from his previous hopes of leading the party into the general election.

It was a deflated Taoiseach who entered the Dáil the next day, to announce its dissolution.

John O’Donohue’s poem reminded him to “act not from arrogance but out of service” and to “have a mind that loves frontiers, so that you can evoke the bright fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye.” Poignant words, but the tide of public opinion had already turned forcefully against Cowen and the outgoing Government. Fianna Fáil, too, was very much outgoing.

Distanced by his party, he spent his final weeks as Taoiseach attending official openings and overseeing the Government’s response to emergencies. He could take some satisfaction from his brother’s election in Laois-Offaly and last faced the cameras when opening a visitors’ centre at the Clara peatland on 8 March.

“It’s a good community occasion to finish up my career on,” he told reporters. “It’s where I started and where I’m finishing, I suppose.” With no immediate plans, he planned to relax away from the spotlight.

Enda Kenny has paid tribute to Cowen’s personal integrity and opponents have privately described him as a decent man.

This was a dramatic conclusion to a political life which took Brian Cowen to the highest point possible yet rapidly fell apart. The Celtic Tiger is long gone but his successors were gracious on his last day in the Dáil. Cowen’s tenure shows the risks awaiting them as they enter his shoes.

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