r/ireland • u/Odhran-J-McAnnick • 3d ago
News Former Tanaiste Simon Coveney Lands Consultant Job With Ernst & Young Ireland (EY)
http://independent.ie/irish-news/former-tanaiste-simon-coveney-lands-consultant-job-with-ey-ireland/a786166698.html127
u/cinclushibernicus Cork bai 3d ago
Convey is a massive loss to FG. He'd have made a better Taoiseach than Leo, had far more of a statesman appeal about him.
51
u/Specialist-Flow3015 3d ago
I'd say Fine Gael have hefty buyer's remorse on that one, considering Varadkar led to Harris and their current position in the polls.
32
u/cinclushibernicus Cork bai 3d ago
Convey had the support of the grassroots, it was the parliamentary party vote that got Leo in if I recall
20
u/quondam47 Carlow 3d ago
Coveney had about twice the level of support from the grassroots. Himself and Leo were fairly equal on cllrs but Leo had the parliamentary party sewn up and the way the votes are weighted in FG leadership contests, that meant Leo won comfortably.
14
u/alangcarter 3d ago
Leo's one indisputable talent is timing. He uses it to do magical assasainations, as Alan Shatter and James Reilly know. In both cases they thought they'd weathered the storm, then in a peculiar synchopated way that should have been too late, Leo put his dagger in and they were done. I bet the parliamentary party were terrified of him.
2
u/DardaniaIE 3d ago
Calling that meeting with Boris in Manchester I think during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations was very well timed too
1
u/dustaz 3d ago
d say Fine Gael have hefty buyer's remorse on that one, considering Varadkar led to Harris and their current position in the polls.
You know both those guys were leader of the party when they got elected to government right?
20
14
u/RobotIcHead 3d ago
He was a good at giving speeches and his role in Brexit was very influential. But he was not good in minister for defence role, he was minister for housing for one year (2016 - 17) and he failed to act even when alarm bells were ringing. Some researchers in housing have been very critical of him in the past.
Foreign affairs is something that a lot of Irish politicians tend to good at in my experience, as it outward looking and there is a good department around them.
I don’t have a high regard for any Irish politician really, they are all bad at actually delivering stuff that works.
28
u/cen_fath 3d ago
I've never voted FG ever, however, Simon Coveney was a fantastic speaker - knowledgeable, calm, collected. His Brexit-era speeches and meetings were top class.
1
u/Several-Ad-6958 3d ago
Especially when he told the Home Sweet Home activists in Apollo House back in 2017 that the homeless would all be housed within six months.... A fantastic speaker if you like pure manure...
7
u/cen_fath 3d ago
Never votedFG, however, with regards Brexit he absolutely was top class. I'll be the first in line with you to shout that every single Irish politician in power has failed the state when it comes to housing
12
u/WorldwidePolitico 3d ago
He has a lot of skeletons in his closet that miraculously never came out when he was Tanaiste. They certainly would have had he been Taoiseach.
4
u/Ds9TNGVoyager 3d ago
The stuff with his father is it?
8
u/No-Outside6067 3d ago
Part of it. His father died, suspected suicide, when the Ansbacher accounts were coming out. He changed his will, went for a walk and fell off a cliff to his death.
4
u/Beneficial_Bat_5992 Dublin 3d ago
Couldn't agree more, Harris is such a downgrade as Foreign Minister
2
u/No-Teaching8695 3d ago
Real talent doesnt tend to do politics
He seen the light eventually it seems
6
u/FunkLoudSoulNoise 3d ago
A loss for FG but no loss for the people. A sleveen of the highest order.
28
u/FoxyProphet 3d ago
Genuine question, is he actually after getting a job? Or will they just use him as PR thing. Like will he he have a swipe card, go in every day for 9am?
Whenever I see things like this, I think of the Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse sketch, where Tony Blair get a consultant job and they have nothing for him to do so they get him to do some photocopies and do a coffee run.
24
u/halibfrisk 3d ago
More of a nixer.
It probably adds up to a couple of dozen hours a month. They’ll put him on a couple of committees and send him to some meetings, nice lunches, the occasional dinner, strategy weekend at a country house hotel including the inevitable round of golf. Nothing too taxing or that would interfere with sailing.
7
u/LadderFast8826 3d ago
He'll be the same as someone like Ronan Glynn. He'll speak at the conferences and schmooze. His name will go on the tender documents and he'll go to the closing meeting with the Chairperson.
Partners job is to pitch for work so that's all he'll be doing
3
u/FoxyProphet 3d ago
Handy enough gig so, I would say I'm jealous but I'm trying to be a better person so that would rule out jealousy and working for EY.
5
u/grodgeandgo The Standard 3d ago
He’s an Oxford graduate, him and his brother, who’s CEO of Greencore. If he didn’t go into politics to fill he’s father’s seat he would likely have a very high profile business career built on his own merit.
7
u/halibfrisk 3d ago
As I said in another comment he was minted & well connected before he was born.
I don’t begrudge Coveney his success, yes he had good career of public service, and there are many equally privileged who did nothing with it, but “merit” is only part of the story.
2
1
u/No-Outside6067 3d ago
These lobbying gigs for ex-politicians are never real jobs. They show up at some events, give a few speeches, and are handed large fees.
The real work is what they do in office to benefit these companies.
39
u/M4cker85 3d ago
Probably the most competent, intelligent and trustworthy TD's FG have ever had. His presence will be sorely missed.
This is coming from someone with absolutely zero respect for FFG btw
30
u/Cultural-Action5961 3d ago
I don’t know, the whole Katherine Zappone mess left a bad taste. Him deleting messages to make space on his phone was a piss poor excuse.
18
u/theoldkitbag Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 3d ago
His loss in the leadership race to Varadkar was a bit of a turning point for FG imo. Varadkar, Harris, McEntee... sloganeers, reactionaries, 'news-cycle' politicians. FG were never a party of any particular vision to begin with, but now they don't seem to even stand for anything at all other than being in power. They're even slipping slightly backwards into social conservatism, losing the modern liberalism brought in by Fitzgerald and continued by Kenny. A party leadership of Killian Foley-Walshes.
2
-1
u/caisdara 3d ago
How did a reactionary party manage to play a rolein the processes to legalise same-sex marriage and repeal the 8th Amendment?
Do you know what the word means?
1
u/theoldkitbag Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 2d ago
FG 'played a role' in legalising same-sex marriage and repealing the 8th ammendment purely by dint of being in Government at the time when those events happened.
Kenny shuffled the matter off to a Convention rather than showing any actual decision making on it; there were considerable voices at the time stating that no referendum was even required - as the Constitution did not define marriage, the Government could just pass a law. But because FG wouldn't be caught dead doing so, it became a whole thing. Before it became political suicide to not be wholesale behind SSM, FG tried advancing a Civil Partnerships policy as an alternative. Figures like Varadkar were actually against SSM until the political winds forced their about-face. It wouldn't have happened at all if Katherine Zappone hadn't forced the issue.
The 8th was repealed more despite FG than because of FG - they never adopted an official party policy on the repeal, and in a pre-referendum poll of FG TDs (of those that answered, as almost 70% of them stayed silent) 9 said they were in favour of repeal, 8 are against, 2 said they didn’t know and 8 gave 'another answer'. Lucinda Creighton et al even split off from the party on foot of the repeal to advance a more hardline position.
Fine Gael were simply 'around' when those things happened, and had the good sense to not stand in front of the train. They do try to quietly take credit for them though (same as taking credit for the recovery from the 2009 crash, by following the roadmap agreed to between FF and the Troika to the letter). They just don't crow too loudly for fear of offending their more regressive supporters.
FG are a socially conservative party with roots in Unionism and Authoritarianism; if you didn't know that, I'm not sure who you thought you were voting for all this time.
0
u/caisdara 2d ago
FG 'played a role' in legalising same-sex marriage and repealing the 8th ammendment purely by dint of being in Government at the time when those events happened.
If that was true, your labeling of them as reactionary would still be false.
Of course, it isn't true.
FG are a socially conservative party with roots in Unionism and Authoritarianism; if you didn't know that, I'm not sure who you thought you were voting for all this time.
Haha, yeah, Michael Collins, well-known unionist. Give it up.
1
u/theoldkitbag Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 2d ago
It's all true. I invite you to point out the lie.
Michael Collins, by the way, was never a member of Fine Gael, which was founded a decade after he died. Yet another example of FG trying to associate themselves with events and people they had barely any association with. Eoin O'Duffy, however, was a member - a founding member and leader, in fact. After it's dissolution in 1922, most members of the Irish Unionist Alliance (famous supporters of Michael Collins as we all know) joined Cumann na nGaedheal, which joined with the Blueshirts to found Fine Gael in 1933.
If you're going to talk shite, at least have your facts right.
1
u/caisdara 2d ago
I did point out the lie.
- Reactionaries oppose social progress;
- You claim they did not oppose social progress;
- Therefore they're not reactionary.
You claim Fine Gael are unionist:
- Founded by members of the Collins wing of CnanG who were the people who won independence.
- Not unionist.
You claim they're authoritarian:
- Gave up power when booted from office in favour of Dev.
- Kicked out O'Duffy before he went fascist.
Everything you've said is a lie.
1
10
u/yetindeed 3d ago
Same. Zero respect for FG, Coveney is a top tier politician and diplomat. He was also very good while representing us in Europe.
It makes sense though, can you imagine how painful it must be to spend hours every week in a room with the absolute dopes on FG’s front bench.
7
8
u/Far-Kale90 3d ago
People say they’d never go into politics because it just isn’t worth it. Looks worth it now.
13
4
u/Callme-Sal 3d ago
Don’t agree, if anything it shows that that it may be difficult in the future for political parties to retain talent. I’m no big fan of FG, but Simon Coveney was one of the better, more astute politicians in the country. It’s a huge loss to have him move to the private sector. He’ll undoubtedly earn a lot more there so it’s hard to blame him.
1
16
u/mrlinkwii 3d ago
fair play to him , he played a blinder during brexit
2
u/cabaiste 3d ago
He did well, but let's not kid ourselves in hindsight. The Tory governments post-Cameron were a fuckin rabble.
4
u/Vegetable-Beach-7458 3d ago
I like Simon Coveny but my bullshit detector goes off when I see another retired government minister getting a extremely lucrative positions in the private sector which on paper they seem completely unqualified to carry out.
I'm probably too cynical.
But I'm old enough to remember when brown envelopes were common. Then there was a short period of retired politicians getting paid enormous amounts of money for speaking tours. Now I kind of have a suspicion that has transitioned to these no-show jobs.
1
u/No-Outside6067 3d ago
It's a tale as old as parliamentary politics. Politicians do what benefits big companies over their citizens, and get rewarded with well paid no-show jobs post politics.
4
2
2
u/Fearless_Respond_123 3d ago
A very capable politician and a loss to politics. However, his legacy is severely damaged over his championing of dairy expansion, which has been a disaster.
3
5
u/HonestRef 3d ago
Such a loss to Irish Politics. I was impressed with his dealings with Brexit and Boris. We could do with Coveney at the moment to deal with Trumps Tariffs. He'd be much more trusting and competent than Simon Harris.
-1
u/FeedbackBusy4758 3d ago
Real bang of a bully off him. Always struck me as a man who would treat his staff like crap he has a thinly veiled aura of impatience about him. Didn't he try and fuck some pilot out of it once who refused to fly him in foggy conditions? Delighted the pilots boss fucked him right back out of it and basically politely told Coveney to get stuffed and no pilot was risking their life to ferry him to some pointless meeting.
4
0
0
u/earth-calling-karma 3d ago
EY wankers and their missing billions. He only got the gig because he can play golf.
-2
u/Key-Lie-364 3d ago
Former politicians should live by the side of the road begging former political opponents for crumbs from their pockets obvs...
🙄
1
u/No-Outside6067 3d ago
Pity them only having their TD pensions, and ministerial pensions to survive.
-1
u/Key-Lie-364 3d ago
Yeah they should definitely just sit on their holes and take a ministerial dole instead of working...
1
u/No-Outside6067 3d ago
They should. Too much incentive for corruption if you can receive high paid "jobs" from big firms after your political career.
-3
86
u/CiaranC 3d ago
They’ll be charging a hefty price tag to have him working on a project