Who are the new ministers at Simon Harris's cabinet table?
The Chamber Dáil Td Harris Simon In
As Simon Harris donned the mantle of Taoiseach, he also reshuffled his cabinet, appointing two new senior ministers in Peter Burke and Patrick O’Donovan.
The new ministers, who replace Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney at the cabinet table, will enter the enterprise and higher education departments respectively.
Mr Burke, taking up the role of enterprise minister, was first elected in 2009 when he became a member of Westmeath County Council.
The Mullingar man made the jump from local to national politics in 2016, when he took the third seat in the Longford-Westmeath constituency for Fine Gael with over 11,000 votes.
During his first term in Leinster House, Mr Burke was put on both the Public Accounts Committee and the finance committee, due to his 10 years' experience working as a chartered accountant.
After being re-elected in the 2020 election and the formation of a Government, Mr Burke was appointed to work in the Customs House as a junior minister with responsibility for local government and planning.
When the rotation of taoiseach occurred in December 2022, he was moved from the Department of Housing to the Department of Foreign Affairs, becoming European affairs minister.
His appointment as enterprise minister had been speculated on since Mr Harris was selected as Fine Gael leader, and increased further when he was selected to second the new Taoiseach’s nomination on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mr O’Donovan has been appointed to Mr Harris’s previous portfolio of higher education, with the Limerick TD first being elected in 2011.
Prior to this, he had been a councillor for Newcastle West between 2003 and his election to the Dáil.
During his time in the Dáil, Mr O’Donovan has held a number of junior ministerial positions, ranging from the Department of Transport, Department of Finance, and Department of Public Expenditure.
More recently, he has been the junior minister with responsibility for the OPW, as well as having responsibility for the Gaeltacht.
Mr O’Donovan will be best known, however, for a reported ‘sting operation’ that he conducted in 2021, where he attempted to expose a government minister for leaking the proposed appointment of Katherine Zappone as a UN envoy.
Mr O'Donivan also made headlines last June, when he fell ill during a Dáil question and answer session, and had to be taken from Leinster House by ambulance. He was treated in both St James's and Beaumont hospitals following the health scare.
There were also small changes on the junior ministerial benches yesterday, with Dún Laoghaire TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill being appointed to a new expanded European affairs junior ministry, taking over from Mr Burke.
The first-time TD, who was elected to the Dáil in 2020, had previously worked as a political advisor to a number of former Fine Gael ministers, including Frances Fitzgerald.
She was first elected as a councillor in 2019 and came into the Dáil very shortly after, having been selected to replace deselected TD Maria Bailey in the wake of the ‘Swing-gate’ controversy.
She was then appointed as a junior minister in the 2022 reshuffle, working at the Department of Finance with specific responsibility for both credit unions and financial institutions.
Ms Carroll MacNeill has spoken in the past about harassment, with a man handed down a 12-month suspended sentence for sending sexually explicit videos to the Fine Gael TD during the 2020 general election campaign.
In her new role, Ms Carroll MacNeill will travel to Europe on a regular basis, meeting with members of EU member state governments.
While chief whip Hildegarde Naughton has been reappointed to her role, she will no longer hold the public health brief and will instead work in the Department of Education with responsibility for special education.
With two elevations from the junior benches, there will be three new junior ministers appointed following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
It is expected that Cork North Central TD, Colm Burke will be appointed as the new junior minister for public health, while Mayo TD Alan Dillon will take on responsibility for the OPW.
Dublin Mid-West TD Emer Higgins will be appointed as a junior minister at the Department of Enterprise, while Neale Richmond will replace Ms Carroll MacNeill.
No changes have been made to either the Fianna Fáil and Green Party cabinet team.