Fianna Fáil land the big spending Departments - opportunity and threat.

Only the leaders of the three Coalition parties know how Departments were divided between the parties. It’s clear that they started with a 6:6:3 ratio of Cabinet Ministers. 

Splitting Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform into separate Departments made total sense in the spirit of partnership between FF and FG.

What gets interesting, however, is how and why the remaining Departments were allocated between the parties. Using https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2019/ (last updated in Feb 2019-so no Covid spending included), there is a pattern emerging.

In 2019 total Government expenditure net of debt servicing and EU payments and spending D/Taoiseach D/Finance and D/PER was €66 billion. 

The Departments now headed by Green Ministers (Transport, Communications and Children) spent around €5 billion.

The five line Departments now filled by Fine Gael Ministers (including the Tánaiste) spent €27 billion. But €21 billion of that (78%) came from the Social Protection Department- the remaining four Departments just spent €6 billion.

The four line Departments now filled by Fianna Fáil Ministers (Health, Housing, Education and Agriculture spent over €34 billion in 2019.

So, the pattern emerging is that (outside of Social Protection) Fianna Fáil now occupy the big spending public facing Departments of State.

This carries both an opportunity and a threat for Fianna Fail. The threat will come in the form remorseless attack from the opposition - especially Sinn Fein which goes into the 33rd Dáil with increased fire power. Other opposition parties like Labour and the Soc Dems will also target the Departments now occupied by Fianna Fail Ministers.

The opportunity comes if the new Ministers can deliver real improvements in each Department. It appears from the pattern identified above that Michael Martin looked for these portfolios to demonstrate that the party had the capacity to deliver. Perhaps Leo Varadkar agreed because he knew how difficult it would be?