In the 14 years since he was first elected to the Dáil, Simon Harris has held an extraordinary range of senior roles. He has served as both taoiseach and, currently, Tánaiste, as minister for health, and as minister for further and higher education – a period during which he also temporarily assumed the responsibilities of minister for justice while his cabinet colleague Helen McEntee was on maternity leave. 

He has been minister for defence, and minister for foreign affairs and trade. Before entering cabinet, he worked as a junior minister in the Department of Finance, the portfolio to which he now returns, this time to take the top position.

With this appointment, Harris enters rare territory in Irish politics: one of the few figures to have occupied what, in the UK, are known as the three great offices of state – justice, finance, and foreign affairs. His rise has been remarkably smooth; first elected to the Dáil at the age of 24, he would later be elected unopposed to the leadership of his party. And he has achieved all of this before reaching the age of 40.

Yet despite the glittering CV, a persistent question lingers: How tested is Simon Harris, really?

We are about to find out.

The Department of Finance is an unforgiving place. Much of the appeal of Simon Harris has centred on his skills as a communicator, and his capacity to, largely, say the right thing at the right time. He is now going to have to learn how to say “no”. 

Yes, the break-up of the portfolio has placed public expenditure in a different department. But the two departments work in continuous lockstep. His new job will involve tempering expectations of his cabinet colleagues and rejecting the wider demands of the public. 

For any politician, this is a serious ask. But for a party leader, particularly one whose authority is in question after the presidential election, it is even more exacting.

It is why one has to reach back to the days of WT Cosgrave to find a party leader who also served as guardian of the purse strings – aside from a handful of brief, temporary overlaps born of necessity.

The job of a party leader is to galvanise the troops. The job of a finance minister is to put them on rations. Harris will now have to marry these competing demands.

A key part of his job, working with Jack Chambers, will be to rein in spending. In 2019, the cost of running the State was €66 billion. Budget 2026 allocated €116.8 billion for next year, an €8.1 billion increase on this year’s allocation. Both Paschal Donohoe and Jack Chambers have acknowledged that spending growth must be moderated. This will involve hard choices and hard conversations with a number of big-spending government departments that have continually operated outside their spending envelope.

Harris’s innate populism must be replaced by prudence. 

There are also some practical points. During budget bilateral meetings between the budget ministers and the various cabinet ministers, the party leaders tend to act as the circuit breaker, an arbitrator, when an issue emerges. Harris will now be the dominant figure for his own party ministers, as, if they have a dispute with him, they have nowhere else to go. 

The Fine Gael leader did not have to take the job himself. An easy, almost elegant solution would have been to summon Peter Burke from his office in the Department of Enterprise. Burke is a chartered accountant and, in all likelihood, will be moved to the Department of Public Expenditure when the next rotation of coalition offices occurs. Plus, unlike Jennifer Carroll McNeill, he is seen as a lieutenant to Harris, rather than a leadership threat.

Yet within a day of Paschal Donohoe tendering his resignation, Harris had already shifted office. It is a bold political calculation, and much now rests on its success. If it goes well, he will consolidate his leadership and elevate his standing. If he cannot navigate the competing forces at play, he will find himself in serious trouble.

It is too early to say what kind of finance minister he will be. Speaking in the Dáil last week, he emphasised the importance of prudence in an uncertain world, echoing the refrain Donohoe has repeated for years. He spoke of investment – in people and in the wider economy – and he spoke of surpluses.

But he also raised the thorny issue of immigration, arguing that “economic prosperity and social cohesion go hand in hand,” and that Ireland must manage its “public finances responsibly and equitably for our citizens”. It echoes his recent efforts to stake out a firmer, more defined position on the issue.

Immigration is one issue. Tax is another. There is no suggestion that the river of corporation tax receipts that have pushed the country into surplus will dry up any time soon. But there is no suggestion that it will flow forever either. 

As the Central Bank warned last week, valuations of US technology stocks are being “stretched” and there could be a knock-on effect to the Irish economy in the event of a stock market shock. As the Central Bank noted, without the windfall corporation tax receipts, Ireland will be deep in deficit. One week earlier, the Fiscal Advisory Council warned: “Ireland’s corporation tax revenues have become more risky. That is, future receipts could be much higher or lower than current levels.”

Donohoe was a key architect of the global tax deals that delivered those windfall taxes. He was in a position to do it due to his international standing and his position as president of the Eurogroup. Due to his length of service and his standing, he built a coalition and cultivated relationships with other blocks. 

That influence is gone with Donohoe off to the World Bank. A key job for Harris will be to maintain and further cultivate those relationships. 

Donohoe realised earlier than most that the era of unfettered multilateralism was under pressure. Instead, he focused on what he described as “a multipolar world in which we have different pillars of integration”. He built alliances with regions and with countries. His diary was littered with calls and visits to his counterparts in Eastern Europe and in the Nordics.  

Harris would be wise to follow a similar playbook.

As Harris checks in, Donohoe is moving on. It was always regarded as a matter of time before he moved to an international role. The shame for Ireland is that it is not one in Europe, where he could have continued to influence events in Ireland’s favour. 

I wrote last week about his legacy and achievements, honing in on his management of international tax developments and his role in returning the Exchequer to surplus.

Those are tangible achievements. But there was something intangible also. The public trusted Donohoe with the stewardship of the public finances. Some might not have liked his policies, particularly towards foreign investment funds or multinationals. But most were still comforted by his presence in the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure. 

Donohoe brought a calmness to the national balance sheet, a steadiness that softened even unpopular decisions. 

Harris will now have to earn that same trust. His résumé is impressive, but the Department of Finance tests temperament as much as talent. If he succeeds, he stabilises both his leadership and his government. If he stumbles, the vacuum will be felt not just in Merrion Street, but across the coalition.

Elsewhere last week…

Alan English began his new role with The Currency with a fascinating three-part investigation into the rise and fall of local newspapers. Over 25 interviews, he delves into the deals, the people, and the dynamics that have underpinned the industry in recent decades. If you are looking for something to read today, sit back, take your time, and work your way through the series. It is well worth it. 

Kate Barton is the global chief executive of the law firm Dentons, which has a growing presence in Ireland. She talked to Tom about her Irish links, plans to double in size in Dublin, and running a firm of 12,000 people.

Fifteen years after the financial crash, banks may seem safer, but risk has slipped into the shadows. So argued the former IBRC boss Mike Aynsley, who warned in an opinion column that the next financial crisis could already be funded – with Ireland at the heart of a fragile global system. “The shadows have returned. The only question is whether we can face them before they collapse back into the light,” he wrote.

Ronan Lyons examined the government’s latest housing plan. The way he sees it, the five-year blueprint sets big targets but misunderstands the scale of the deficit, overestimates what builders can deliver and all but forgets the rental sector.