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ALL 23 JUNIOR Ministers have been named by Government.
This government has the highest number of junior ministers in the history of the State, they are also set to be the best paid junior ministers we have ever had.
Three of the juniors – Colm Brophy, Timmy Dooley and Marian Harkin – will not officially be junior ministers until legislation is amended to allow the number of junior ministers rise from 20 to 23.
The record number of positions are filled by 10 Fianna Fáil TDs, eight Fine Gael TDs and five Independents.
Only six of the 23 are women.
The positions were confirmed by Cabinet when it met this afternoon. Four of the 23 are super junior ministers (these four were confirmed last week) and will sit at the weekly Cabinet meetings.
Yesterday, Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly launched legal action against the Government over whether the attendance of ‘super junior’ ministers at Cabinet is unconstitutional.
Here is the full list of who is who.
Niamh Smyth
The Cavan-Monaghan TD was chair of the Oireachtas Media Committee throughout the RTÉ crisis. Some had tipped her to become the Minister for Media as a result, but today she enters the junior ministerial ranks as a minister of state in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
She has special responsibility for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation.
Jennifer Murnane O’Connor
The Carlow-Kilkenny TD has been appointed junior minister in the Department of Health with responsibility for public health, wellbeing and national drugs strategy.
Niall Collins
Collins has been appointed a junior minister in the Department of Justice with special responsibility for international law, law reform and youth justice.
Robert Troy
The Longford-Westmeath TD is making a comeback to the frontbench following his resignation, resulting from his failure to declare property interests, as a minister of state in 2022.
He has been appointed junior minister with responsibility for Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance in the Department of Finance.
Michael Moynihan
The Cork North-West TD has been appointed minister of state at the Department of Education with special responsibility for special education and inclusion.
Timmy Dooley
Clare TD Dooley will be a minister of state at the Department of Agriculture with responsibility for fisheries.
He will also hold a junior ministry in the Department of the Environment with responsibility for the marine.
Charlie McConalogue
The former Agriculture Minister and Donegal TD has been appointed junior minister in the Department of Tourism and Media with special responsibility for sport and postal policy.
Thomas Byrne
Byrne, a TD for Meath East, is now junior minister in the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Defence with special responsibility for European Affairs and Defence.
Christopher O’Sullivan
The Cork South-West TD is now a junior minister in the Department of Housing and Local Government with special responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity.
Kieran O’Donnell
O’Donnell has been appointed minister of state at the Department of Health with special responsibility for Older People.
He has also been appointed a minister of state in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage with special responsibility for Housing.
Colm Brophy
The Dublin South West TD will be minister of state for migration within the Department of Justice.
Jerry Buttimer
Buttimer, a former senator, has been given special responsibility for Community Development, Charities, Gaeltacht and the Islands within the Department of Rural and Community Development and special responsibility for Rural Transport within the Department of Transport.
John Cummins
The former senator and first-time TD for Waterford was one of Fine Gael’s negotiators in the recent government formation talks.
He has been given special responsibility for local government and planning within the Department of Housing and Local Government.
Emer Higgins
Higgins, a Dublin Mid West TD, has been appointed minister of state at the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform with special responsibility for Public Procurement, Digitalisation and eGovernment.
Neale Richmond
Richmond has been appointed a minister of state in the Department of Foreign Affairs with responsibility for international development and diaspora.
Alan Dillon
Dillon has been appointed junior minister in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with special responsibility for small businesses and retail.
He has also been appointed a junior minister in the Department of the Enrivonment, Climate and Communications with special responsibility for the circular economy.
Kerry’s Micheal Healy-Rae is now a junior minister in the Department of Agriculture with responsibility for forestry, farm safety and horticulture.
Marian Harkin
Harkin, a TD for Sligo-Leitrim, will be a junior minister in the Department of Higher Education with responsibility for further education, apprenticeship, construction and climate skills.
Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran
‘Boxer’ Moran will be a junior minister with responsibility for the Office of Public Works within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
He previously held this position from 2017-2020.
Noel Grealish
The Independent TD for Galway West has responsibility for food promotion, new markets, research and development within the Department of Agriculture.
Seán Canney
The Independent TD for Galway West has responsibility for international and road transport, rail and ports within the Department of Transport.
Hildegarde Naughton
The Fine Gael TD for Galway West has responsibility for disability.
Mary Butler
The Fianna Fáil Waterford TD is the Government Chief Whip and also has special responsibility for mental health.
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Meaningless Manifestos. Meaningless Slogans. Meaningless Promsises.
@David Field: True, but in terms of the wording, SF are making the most sense
@Thesaltyurchin: @Thesaltyurchin: ”Sinn Féin’s manifesto makes no mention of the migration system.”
They’re not making much sense on the issue of immigration, which affects nearly every other issue people worry about.
Immigration is the biggest issue for most people according to a recent Irish Independent poll.
@Dave Callaghan: it’s all false promises. Why would you vote for any major party, they promises the stars, but yet it’s cloudy 99% of the time. We need a change, but who do you pick. As a person in the 50s I’ve seen frist hand what FFG has turned this country into. I’m not voting SF either,they talked the talk, but aren’t willing to walk the walk.
Fianna fails could not be more vague or even half hearted. Looks like somebody literally phoned that in or wrote it on a post-it note
Ireland is the only country in Europe that allows asylum seekers to vote in local and European elections. An asylum seeker can register to vote without a passport or ID.
Department of Justice figures from last year confirm that 85% of asylum seekers entered Ireland last year without passport or ID. They can now vote in our elections.
Establishment parties are relying on the vote of asylum seekers as they know the majority of Irish people have turned against them. Asylum seekers and economic migrants have been granted the power to shape the future of the Irish political system.
This is an extremely sinister move by our government and is an attack on our democracy.
@JagTune: Great little rant about sinster moves by the government to attack our democracy.
The problem is that we actually had a referendum in 1999 on this, where the people of Ireland had the democratic right to decide on this issue, and 77.83% of us voted in favour of it.
Of course, this predated the rise of right-wing hysteria, it was back when we all had hope for the future, could make ends meet and didn’t look for an easy target to blame all the problems of the country on and instead held politicians to account, to actually sort out the problems themselves, rather than just looking for a scapegoat to blame them on..
@JagTune: Asylum seekers can not vote in European elections in Ireland. Further, asylum seekers can not apply for asylum without proving their identity, so there are no asylum seekers who’s identity has not been established voting in local elections in Ireland. Your post stinks of mis-truths and prejudice
Problem is they rarely deliver, they often knowingly lie, they are primarily driven by retaining their income and claiming as many expenses as possible and finally the guy in all councils with the most power is not elected so what’s the point.
FG are promising to fix all the things they broke, like some thug telling his beaten up wife that he won’t do it again, that it’ll be different from now on and that he really loves and cares deeply for. her.
Time to stop feeding the hand that bites us.
@Fidgenti: they cannot be smacking up the women now
What Fianna Fáil really meant to say was – underdelivering for Fine Gael in the past, underdelivering for Fine Gael in the future. Fine Gael really meant to say working with Fianna Fáil, working for Fianna Fáil. FG and FF should officially join forces and become one party. There is zero difference between them now, and they have been great bedfellows in government in destroying the country. A vote for FG is a vote for FF and vice versa.
Should all these things not have been done years ago, what have they all been doing for years gone bye
Who will get rid of the usc? They will get my vote
@Sean Money:
None of them so, and if any candidate in a local election tells you they can, you have found the biggest liar of them all
@P. J.: it makes me sad
@P. J.: What about any of the nazi people and far rights, surely they would?
There’s actual people out there that believe that waffle
Just make sure you do vote. Don’t take anything for granted.
Same old, same old … roll in 10 years, rinse, repeat.
Only party getting my Vote is the ones going to stop our country getting invaded .
Hooray everything will be fixed finally!!!!
When Palestine becomes more important than Portlaise – you know parties have no real agenda except jumping on trends. SF’s biggest revelation this time around has been them cosying up and bending over backwards with the Islamists.
@DCQ: Yeah, that’s why they don’t get my vote this time. Independents it will be.
@Kush OMeara: Is that you Mattie?
There’s no need for The Journal to read it to us and there’s no need for anyone else to read it either because all we’ll read is spoof.
So FF are going to mandate gender targets for board appointments in local authorities. Well they have just lost one vote with that silly proposal and hopefully will lose more if they continue down the road of gender (and other) quotas.
Manifiestos are spoofery. That said, despite polls making a lot of presumptions on the alleged fall in support for Sinn Fein, I think a lot of younger voters 18-34 will probably vote for them in the impending elections and a future general election.
Simply because they have no historic baggage about them, attacks on Sinn Fein from FFFG about being the past political wing of the IRA, means as much to them as someone talking about FFFG actions during the civil war, because they didn’t live through any of it, to them its all just boring history.
I personally doubt that Sinn Fein in government will deliver on any of the things they promise in opposition, and suspect that they will claim they need at least two terms to fix the mess left to them, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
@Dvsespaña: It’s not the past IRA history that is causing the drop in support for SF. It’s their constant flip flopping on all major issues so no one knows where they stand on anything.
@Nodon: Congratulations on arguing against a point and claim that I didn’t make..
@Ulysses 31:
Thankfully there is so many candidates of the hard right variety that their support will be spread thin, very few, if any will be elected and the majority of people will be able to ignore them.
@Ulysses 31: Nonsense.
@Ulysses 31: It begins with we need to stop and repatriate international protection applicants, then all of a sudden it’s we need to stop unlimited economic migrants because they are the problem, then before you know it, it’s ordinary citizens being stopped in the street by psychopathic bureaucrats and told their papers are not in order, and them sending anyone that disagrees to re-education camps…
Then eventually, people begin to wonder as they have at various points throughout history, how and when exactly did we allow these vicious lunatics to take control?
@P. J.: if people use their transfers properly their vote will consolidate. Hopefully they will do and the results will be a better reflection of public opinion.
@Ulysses 31: There lies the problem, because there isn’t a right-wing lite, or a limited form of fascism. It is like every other ideology, a self perpetuating bureaucracy that compounds itself.
In Germany in the 1930′s, Hitler was saying to voters that they needed to help him rebuild Germany for Germans.
The Germany that was destroyed physically and financially by losing WW1 and being forced to pay reparations, he told them that with their support in voting for his national socialist party he would take back control of Germany and regain its former glory…
On the surface, this appealed to a lot of ordinary German people that were struggling to make ends meet, categorise people by race or ethnicity, expel from Germany everyone not aryan German, and seize the assets and businesses of foreigners
Hitler kept the crazy talk about genocide, slaughtering the Jews, the disabled, homosexuals, gypsies and anyone not aryan German, to his inner circle with whom he had tried to overthrow the German government through an earlier insurrection in 1923, at least he did until they finally held the reins of power, by then it was too late and the die was cast and the rest is history…
Fine Gael are going to place bees on the roof of local authority buildings where practical.
Do they mean hives? And presumably that’s only possible on flat roofs. And they’d need trained Bee keepers. And a risk assessment cos people might get stung.
Don’t think it’s practical.
But I could be wrong.
We read the manifestos so you dont.
Not one mention of crime or antisocial behaviour. HOW on earth are local councillors more concerned about Palestine, a country over which a local councillor will have absolutely ZERO power to help or influence outside of virtue signalling by waving a flag around outside city hall, than the absolute state of our inner cities when it comes to open drug dealing, antisocial behaviour and general crime. This is an absolute circus.
can we have our country back please ..that’s all
Not easy to predict results on this occasion .
Seems that they are all striving to do these things nothing concrete so basically bs
Which party should I vote for to control migration into our country.
SF don’t care.
Ff and FG want us to take migrants that arrived illegally from other countries.
Which party to vote for in the EU elections..
The Coalition parties have done massive damage to Democracy in Ireland, they have failed the Irish people who have lost all trust in all arms of the State & no longer swallow the lies & false promises. They brand those who question their actions as Far Right, deflecting from their failures, as they know that things are about to change drastically in Ireland. They must solely take responsibility for this & why people are seeking extremes. The Opposition are no better, in fact nobody sees anybody in Dail Eirinn as leaders or providing leadership. The fact is, it’s now too late for the Coalition parties, the days of people giving them another chance is gone. The Referendums were a warning & the vote went unheeded by our Political Classes, too late now.
Ireland’s maritime climate is one topic among many within the umbrella of the Earth science of climate, just as geology and biology cover many topics within their respective research areas.
The idea of making climate one thing, in this case, long-term weather to suit computer modelling, reflects poorly on society, from politicians to the electorate.
An element of social politics would be to curtail the influence of scientific method modelling. Because that subculture cannot be inspirational, of necessity, it must be hysterical and dire, so a creative and productive society does not need it.
@Gerald Kelleher: Doesn’t really matter if one believes or not. There are ways to heat your house, some of them make sense and some don’t. The path of reason should be the journey we’re on, but people are terrified of change (the only certainty apart from death) and so are incapable moving past almost any societal road block. In Ireland its evident throughout our society, with nearly all of our infrastructures suffering generational neglect.
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