OPINION: Simon Coveney probably best Foreign Affairs Minister in history of State

WE in the media rarely praise politicians. It is, probably, a weakness.  Our role as journalists is to hold to account all those who have authority over us. We only exist in democracies. In autocracies we would be jailed were we to perform our job honestly. It begs the inevitable question - are those media people in the world’s dictatorships/autocracies really journalists? That is the question.

In democracies the relationship between media and those who rule over us all can be, should be, strained. We operate at a distance. We are not bosom buddies. Generally, those in authority do not like us Dr Fell. (Referring to a very funny comedy by Dublin playwright Bernard Farrell). They should not. Where they are concerned, we are like the weather. Something to be lived with, no matter how miserable. We won’t go away you know.

They are the players on stage and we media are the critics. It was Brendan Behan who said once of critics that they were “like eunuchs in a brothel; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.” Having been a 'eunuch’ myself, as theatre critic for the Irish Press until it closed in 1995 – an unrelated fact! – I have to acknowledge some truth in the astute and so sensitive observation by Mr Behan.

We media are the hurlers on the ditch. It does not mean we don’t like or admire people in positions of authority, but we rarely say so. It’s a flaw, dictated by a fear that we may be perceived to have lost our objectivity and so, henceforth, our judgement is suspect.

We don’t want anyone to think we have favourites or that our judgement might be blunted in reporting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help us!

This lengthy preamble is by way of allowing me freely praise our current Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney as probably the best in the history of this state. I don’t know him personally, so this observation is entirely based on his performance in that post since 2017.

He has been superb on probably the most important foreign affairs issue to face Ireland in 50 years, Brexit. He has been calm, consistent, reasonable, despite sometimes outrageous provocation on the part of the current and, yes indeed, the previous Tory administration in Downing Street. He has done this State great service in that context.

His role last year and that of his Department of Foreign Affairs staff in securing a prestigious seat for Ireland on the UN Security Council – on the very first ballot! - was remarkable. That, of course, involved intense and clever campaigning over the immediate previous years.

His role, along with his fellow countymen – the Cork fishermen – in persuading Russia to move its naval exercises outside Ireland’s exclusive economic zone recently was, frankly, remarkable.

It may even suggest the Skibbereen Eagle newspaper was not at all exaggerating it or Cork’s influence over Russia when it proclaimed in an editorial of September 1898 that the paper would “keep its eye on the Emperor of Russia, and all such despotic enemies – whether at home or abroad – of human progression, and man’s natural rights, which undoubtedly include a nation’s claim to self-government”.

That did not end there. In 1946 a cartoon was published of Ireland’s then taoiseach Éamon de Valera in one-to-one talks with then Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who murmured through pipe smoke: “Between ourselves, Dev, Russia has never quite forgotten that article in the Skibbereen Eagle.”

Clearly, Vlad Putin hasn’t forgotten either!

On top of which Minister Coveney and his  Foreign Affairs staff were central to the release last weekend of innocent Dublin businessman Richard O’Halloran from China after what amounted to three years of groundless detention.

And there was Simon Coveney, with Taoiseach Micheal Martin, in Derry, speaking compassionately and eloquently about the massacre 50 years ago in that lovely city where 13 unarmed and innocent people were slaughtered by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment, with another person to die of injuries some months later.

So what prompts this seeming eulogy? One which, it could be argued, challenges the objectivity to which I insist adherence? Frankly, it is that very objectivity which prompted me to look at Simon Coveney’s contribution 'in the round’, as opposed to recent seeming errors onto which his critics have seized.

Let’s begin with those critics of his role in the release of Richard O’Halloran. This innocent man went to China three years ago in an attempt to sort out financial shenanigans on behalf of the company he had recently joined and, effectively, ended up being kidnapped for three years.  Intensive back channel efforts by Simon Coveney, Irish diplomats, and others, following torturous negotiations, meant he arrived at home last weekend. All done below the radar.

Mr O’Halloran had hardly touched down in Dublin than 'those-who-know-everything' announced he would have been released sooner had different tactics been involved – no proof offered – while others criticised Simon Coveney for acknowledging the Chinese Embassy in Ireland and authorities in China itself for their help in releasing Mr O’Halloran.

The fact is, and however outrageous the detention of Richard O’Halloran in China, he could not have been released without the co-operation of some Chinese authorities.  It was difficult not to conclude, where some such critics were concerned, that they were just jumping on the band waggon and that the easiest way to attract headlines was to criticise the Minister. Richard O’Halloran himself felt otherwise.

Fine, Simon Coveney could have dealt better with the Zappone affair last year but few could have foreseen how that would have developed out of all proportion to its significance. Indeed, it has to be said Katherine Zappone would have been an excellent representative at UN level where Ireland was concerned but that, because the matter was so mishandled as much by her as anyone else, it ended up becoming a cause celebre last summer.

It did not help that she, an able and talented politician, suffers from what some have described as 'pushy Yank syndrome'. With more patience, she could have secured the role to the benefit of us all.

As for that other 'mishap’ which some insist on drawing Simon Coveney into – the 'celebrations’ by Foreign Affairs staff when Ireland secured its UN Security Council seat on the very first ballot 18 months ago. It simply should not have happened at that time, considering pandemic restrictions then. But who could blame them!

They had gathered to mount a campaign to canvass support to secure that seat in the belief we might not get it on the first vote. But, through their previous efforts we did and, to their delighted surprise, on that very first ballot. So celebrations (brief) burst out all over. Is there an Irish person on this planet who cannot understand what happened there? I very much doubt it. Is there an Irish person on this planet who did not breach a pandemic regulation? I very much doubt it.

This was not Downing Street. This was not 'Partygate' – one of a series of parties to illustrate that there was one law 'for them' and another 'for us'. Attempts to suggest Simon Coveney had responsibility for that 'celebration' is just low, naked political opportunism.

The people of Ireland are not stupid and politicians, above all, must know this. These petty attempts to damage probably one of our best Ministers in this Government, as well as in his role at Foreign Affairs, is more likely to rebound on the critics than on Simon Coveney himself.

None of this means he is above criticism or scrutiny, absolutely not. But it would be more credible if those who are out to 'get him' had solid grounds for doing so. Otherwise they are in danger of proving themselves mere political pygmies.