Ministerial sacking adds to rocky start for Ireland’s new PM

Ireland’s new premier Micheál Martin has sacked a senior minister over a historic drink-driving case as he attempts to bring an end to a controversy that has marred his first weeks in office. 

Mr Martin removed Barry Cowen as agriculture minister on Tuesday night, hours after defending him in parliament, abruptly ending one of the shortest cabinet appointments in Irish political history.

“This issue is damaging to the ongoing work of government,” the prime minister, or taoiseach, said. The opposition has accused him of “chaotic” leadership for standing by Mr Cowen earlier in the day.

The 2016 case has led to a rocky start to Mr Martin’s tenure, overshadowing a historic grand coalition as his new government battles the severe health and economic fallout from coronavirus.

Mr Martin’s centrist Fianna Fáil, the centre-right Fine Gael of deputy premier Leo Varadkar and the Green party only came together less than three weeks ago, following an inconclusive February election before the pandemic struck. Fianna Fáil had been out of office since voters rejected the party in 2011 at the height of the financial crisis.

The pandemic has killed 1,746 in Ireland and pushed the country into severe recession. A rising number of new infections as lockdown restrictions are unwound has spurred anxiety about a threatened second Covid-19 wave.

Mr Cowen, a Fianna Fáil negotiator in coalition talks and brother of former premier Brian Cowen, had apologised for a driving ban four years ago after he was caught breaking the alcohol limit. He was in office only for 17 days.

Mr Martin at first accepted the apology, after a newspaper reported the driving offence within days of his cabinet appointment, despite the incoming minister not telling him of the offence.

After another newspaper report on Sunday, Mr Cowen issued a statement denying an official police record suggesting he may have tried to evade a checkpoint and sought to change the record. But he declined to address parliament or take questions publicly on it.

Mr Cowen showed the police file to Mr Martin on Tuesday morning. The prime minister defended the minister in parliament in the early afternoon, only to sack him seven hours later after saying the document raised “additional issues requiring further explanation” from Mr Cowen.

The contents of the police report remain unclear but Mr Martin had earlier said it was “not quite as it has been portrayed”.

Opposition parties said Mr Martin had questions to answer because he had stood by Mr Cowen after reading the police report.

“The taoiseach needs to explain what happened between 2pm this afternoon and the sacking of Barry Cowen this evening, other than the taoiseach himself had been dragged into the mess,” said Pearse Doherty, deputy leader of Sinn Féin in the Dáil assembly.

Mr Cowen said he was “surprised and disappointed” by his dismissal. “Ten days ago and this afternoon the taoiseach believed my failure of 2016 did not warrant my removal from office but he now appears to have changed his mind based on a report I gave him this morning,” he said. 

He continued: “Unfortunately the decision of the taoiseach to remove me from office, when he supported me this afternoon in the Dáil, has undermined and potentially prejudiced my entitlement to fair process.”