DUBLIN

FIFTEEN MINISTERS, FOUR super-junior minister and twenty three junior ministers, that’s what it now takes to govern the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, population 5.26 million.

There are 174 members of the Irish Parliament’s lower house, the Dail. The main governing parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, have 48 and 38 seats respectively, and they will rely on support from 7 independents for their majority. That’s where all the junior minister malarkey enters the equation. Three distinct political groupings have to be rewarded. So out of 93 Government supporters, 42 – that’s virtually half the membership of the government benches – have been appointed to ministerial rank and all the benefits that go with it.

Of course, there’s another angle to this. The more ministers the more people are shackled to the fate of the government, the less likely they are to rebel and cause trouble from the back benches.*

*You may well think that, we could not possibly comment – ED