In fairness to James Browne, Fianna Fáil’s Minister of State at the Department of Justice, he did not say that his boss, Helen McEntee, had been brazen enough to take maternity leave twice, leaving her “assistant” – as Browne’s FF colleague Jim O’Callaghan styles the junior minister’s job – quite overwhelmed.
Browne did say that the Department of Justice is “clearly overwhelmed”, and that “I as Minister of State have done 50 per cent of all the legislation in that department” and “a junior minister shouldn’t really be carrying that level of weight in a department”.
Why shouldn’t he? What was he implying? Had he been asked to carry too much of the burden for McEntee, Newstalk’s Shane Coleman wondered? “No, but you’ve had the Taoiseach who has been in there for six months and so has Minister Heather Humphreys as well,” said Browne. “I just think it’s notable that you can’t have a situation where a minister of state is going to have to carry all that legislation.”
When the implied criticism of McEntee’s maternity leaves became full-blown irritation, Micheál Martin, Browne’s party leader, explained that it was all a misunderstanding. Browne’s point was that the department’s “huge” workload needed to be divided into two, he said. A reasonable point. Browne’s words were indeed preceded by his vision of separate departments of Justice and Internal Affairs. But if the remarks........