With this soap opera of intrigue, what are Fine Gael doing?

It’s hard to figure out what Fine Gael and its leader have been doing for the past couple of weeks, as they managed to turn an unfortunate health episode of one of its more colourful Ministers into a soap opera of accusation, intrigue and speculation. I know Simon Harris isn’t getting much sleep these days, but still.

Next weekend the party gets the chance to gee-up the troops and rally around the leader at its ardfheis in Cork. God knows they need it. Mind you, these gatherings are also the opportunity for gossip, conspiracy, scheming and plotting. So, lots to look forward to.

Everyone hopes Patrick O’Donovan makes a full recovery and is back at work quickly, and Harris has been very clear that he wants him back in the Cabinet – though, from what I can tell, few people expect to see him back soon. It is to be hoped his health difficulties will not prevent him from returning to political life at the highest level. But his health difficulties are considerable and it would be unrealistic to assume his return is a foregone conclusion.

I have always had a sneaking admiration for O’Donovan’s willingness to annoy powerful interests, without which ministers will accomplish little. He is quick, unafraid to slay sacred cows, independent-minded and a bit ornery. You’d always tune in when he’s on the radio. He is not one to parrot the lines-to-take or follow instructions from the press office.

But his judgment is sometimes suspect and his management of his wide-ranging portfolio, I am told by unexcitable commercial types who simply want to see any minister get on with business, leaves much to be desired. He has been the subject of complaints by stakeholders and political allies as well as opponents.

Remember, before his unfortunate episode of illness recently, O’Donovan – though everyone has tactfully forgotten this now – had created a big and unnecessary stink over RTÉ funding, a subject that always gets a lot of media and political attention, for obvious reasons.

He made an absolute hames of his budget negotiations. He talked up a budget gimmick in the shape of his “culture card” (where was the demand for that?) and then couldn’t get the money for it from the Department of Public Expenditure because he had clearly rubbed Jack Chambers and his officials up the wrong way.

At the last minute, using the threat to blow up RTÉ’s budget as a bargaining chip, he secured extra funds from Chambers. But then he proceeded to blow up the RTÉ budget anyway, without the knowledge – or permission, I am unambiguously assured – of either the Taoiseach or Tánaiste. They immediately ordered him to back down, but the controversy dogged the Government for the few days after the budget – very much not what the leaders of the Government wanted to be talking about, having just spent €8.5 billion. Thanks, Patrick!

He should not have been surprised at the briefing against him. Yes, the health stuff was a bit rough, but it’s a rough game sometimes. Not everyone is cut out for it.

But if O’Donovan’s behaviour was ill-judged, Harris’s has been plain peculiar. Let’s recap the sequence of events: Patrick provokes an unnecessary row with RTÉ, banjaxing the post-budget PR drive; party leaders are annoyed with Patrick and force him to back down; an unnamed Fine Gael Cabinet Minister says unkind things about Patrick to the Sunday Times; Patrick hits the roof, declaring this to be “the ultimate in betrayal”; after a morning of incendiary coverage, Harris rings Patrick; soon afterwards, Patrick becomes ill; Harris then declines to confirm or deny that he made a phone call to Patrick before he became ill; a few days later, after journalists were urged by Harris’s office not to speculate about Patrick’s Cabinet future when he was so ill, out of deference to his family, Harris issues a statement backing his Minister and looking forward to his return to Cabinet; Patrick’s family also issue a statement, primarily concerned with his return to Cabinet.

[ Harris says ‘hurtful’ anonymous comments questioning O’Donovan’s performance should never recurOpens in new window ]

Why would Harris be so nervous about revealing the existence of the phone call with O’Donovan? His explanation in interviews this week – that he was on paternity leave – doesn’t stack up, as he also admitted: “I had lots of conversations with lots of colleagues during my paternity leave.”

The suspicion has to be that the call was quarrelsome, and Harris didn’t want to talk about this given the distressing subsequent events. But nobody was seriously going to blame him for O’Donovan’s illness, were they? Harris’s current position is that he is not going to discuss the contents of the call. However, he is prepared to say what the content was not: quarrelsome. This is not, frankly, the most sustainable defence I have ever heard. The Tánaiste is entitled to tell an excitable Minister to shut up if he thinks it judicious; the Minister is entitled to push back. These sort of conversations between adults happen all the time.

The other outstanding question is about the original briefing to the Sunday Times. There have been denials all round, not all universally believed, I have to tell you. Speculation has been intense, of course, but otiose. In these matters, politicians and journalists have to trust each other. In the political world, information is the currency.

I can’t help feeling though that the whole thing has been a bit of a storm in a teacup, badly handled on all sides. Sure, it told us some interesting things, but little will change as a result of it. Harris’s party will judge him primarily on polls and election results; politicians will continue to brief against each other; and journalists will continue to facilitate that. Often it is the way politics talks to itself. The public is usually less interested.