By Eve Lonergan
It’s been eight months since Simon Coveney announced he was stepping down from Cabinet. A few months later, Mr Coveney announced his intention not to contest the next general election, bringing his twenty-six years of holding a seat in Cork South Central to a close.
“My view was always that once I hit my 50s, I need a good reason to stay in politics,” Simon Coveney reveals. “I have a fairly simple philosophy in life: you only live once and you should do as much as you possibly can in that time.”
In 1998, Simon Coveney’s father Hugh Coveney tragically passed, leaving a twenty-five-year-old Simon to take on the political legacy left behind.
“I entered politics unexpectedly,” he reflects. “In truth, I probably got elected initially on the back of the sympathy vote.”
“I was asked by John Bruton if I'd consider running in the by-election,” he explains, “and I thought about it, and decided I would, even though it was far from ideal timing.
“Sometimes you're confronted in life with challenges and opportunities, and you take them and try and make them work.”
Over the following two decades, Simon Coveney took on many roles within Fine Gael, from an MEP in the European Parliament to Minister for Agriculture and Marine, to briefly becoming Minister for Housing, to Defence Minister - a position he held on two separate occasions - to Minister for Foreign Affairs and ultimately the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
With a political legacy spanning over a quarter of a century, in many ways Simon Coveney epitomises Fine Gael; consistent, diplomatic, with a touch of self-justification. In Carrigaline, which he considers his hometown, his reputation was one he felt had to be earned.
“I stood for the local elections after getting elected to the Dáil because I think some people were of the view that I had come from nowhere and hadn't done the groundwork in politics,” he mentions, “so I was anxious to show that I could be busy as a counsellor as well a TD.”
Running in an intensely competitive constituency, Mr Coveney has found that people have been understanding of how politicians prioritise both national and local needs.
“I probably got my biggest vote in the general election after a lot of the work that I'd done on Brexit,” he reflects, “which which I think was the constituency saying: ‘look, we understand we haven't seen you a lot because you've been in Belfast and London and Dublin and Brussels and other EU capitals trying to defend Ireland's position.’
Upon his announcement that Mr Coveney would be leaving Fine Gael, An Taoiseach Simon Harris commented that: “Simon’s role during Brexit will be his legacy.”
Reflecting on the Brexit negotiations, Mr Coveney explains that: “It was a very complex negotiation because it involved an EU negotiation with the UK, so Ireland in some ways was not the negotiator. But of course we were very much central to the negotiation, because Ireland became the key impediment to an agreement on what Brexit would look like.”
“In the five years that I was a Foreign Minister, there were four British Prime Ministers, five British Foreign Secretaries, six Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and seven Brexit spokespeople,” he recalls, “so that will give you a sense of just how volatile and difficult that period was.
“But look, it was one that I hope people will judge as a success for Ireland from a negotiating point of view.”
Ireland’s staunch position on Brexit has resulted in an avoidance of a hard border on the island, and the relationship between Ireland and the UK has been maintained. In Northern Ireland however, Brexit has opened up conflicting opinions on the state’s future.
“Obviously, there's an ongoing debate now around the future of Northern Ireland,” Mr Coveney comments.
“I think we need to try and tone down some of the divisive rhetoric. We need to change the way in which we commemorate the past, perhaps,” he continues. “And I think if we're going to achieve a united Ireland in the future, it's got to be a united Ireland that actually understands and accommodates Britishness.”
While Brexit may be an apex point in his political legacy, Mr Coveney has endured both rises and falls throughout his political career, each one a new lesson. The biggest lesson?
“Humility,” he states. “It's all well and good, visiting the White House, going to visit senior ministers in places like Moscow and Beijing and that's the high profile part of politics, but I think the Irish electorate like to ensure that people remain grounded.”
“The other thing which is a lesson, is that sometimes it's not possible to bring about change as fast as you'd like. For me, I remember I made a commitment as a housing minister that we would get families out of hotels, which was effectively a form of short term emergency accommodation. We still haven't managed to do it. But I made that commitment in absolute good faith.”
When Mr Coveney took on the role of Minister for Housing in 2016, he launched a five-year plan to reinvigorate the housing market and end temporary accommodation for homeless families.
“I'd like to think we laid the foundations for what has happened since, which is a pretty dramatic increase in the output of homes right across the country,” he asserts. “When I became housing minister, the year before - because I asked this question on day one - local authorities across the country had only built 75 social houses in total across the country.
“That figure is now probably 8000 each year, so we are making progress there, but there's still a lot of work to do.”
According to reports from the department of housing, despite the number of social housing builds increasing steadily (from 2,977 in 2016 to 8,110 in 2023), targets for new builds have failed to be reached every year since 2019. 2023 was the first year that over 8,000 social housing new builds were completed.
When asked about Ireland’s current housing crisis, Mr Coveney is quick to remind people: “don't forget, I mean, the housing crisis in Ireland - it wasn't just Fine Gael in government, we've been a government before with the Labour Party, we've been with independents, involved with the Greens. And of course, we were rebuilding the housing market after a complete collapse.
In the recent general election, despite polls indicating that the public was perhaps looking to see a change from the past 100 years of Fianna Fáil / Fine Gael governments, the outcome was a vote for consistency. However, the increasing housing crisis looks to be one of the major challenges facing the upcoming government.
“I think the Irish electorate made a sensible choice,” Mr Coveney states. “What Ireland needs right now isn't radical alternatives. It needs stability, experience and a strong commitment to the key areas where we need delivery, particularly in housing.”
While parties in Ireland begin to visualise a new government, retrospection allows Simon Coveney to consider the decisions politicians must make in response to the changing political climate.
“I think if I was to do it all again, I'd like to think that I would have tried to drive slightly more radical approach towards certain things in politics,” he reflects, “like we did through Brexit, like we did through COVID for example, where we just set the norms to one side and said: ‘right, this has to be done because if it isn't done, we're going to we're going to lose lives and a lot of them’.”
“But everything can't be a national emergency,” he continues.
“It's about prioritising the things that really matter in politics. We prioritised the Brexit negotiations - very successful outcome. We prioritised COVID in terms of protecting people; I think the outcomes of international standards were pretty good. On housing, it's taken us longer. It's been a much more complex set of challenges.”
Looking back on his political career, Mr Coveney is pragmatic about the pressures and regrets that arise from a life in the political sphere.
“On a personal level, keeping my family together, while at the same time giving so much of my time to politics was not easy,” Mr Coveney candidly admits.
“One of my big regrets is that we haven't got the event centre built in Cork,” he acknowledges. “What I will say - because I've taken a lot of flack on this, and fair enough - but this project would have died long ago if it hadn't been for people like me and the previous chief executive of Cork City Council, sticking with it and insisting on solving problems as they emerged.
“I think Cork will get the benefit of that in time. But you know, it should have happened 5 years ago, put it that way.”
As he draws the curtains on his political career, people have begun to ask Simon Coveney about his “retirement”.
“I find the ‘retirement’ word quite uncomfortable because I'm not retiring actually,” he remarks. “From a work point of view, I'll probably be working as hard as I've ever worked. But it'll just be in a different area.
“Hopefully people can understand that it's not a rejection of politics, or in fact quite the opposite. For me it's about trying to ensure that there's a new generation of political leaders emerging in this constituency and in Fine Gael.”
Though not inclined to give a definitive “no” on the possibility of someday re-entering politics, Mr Coveney hopes that his time in politics has left a welcome legacy locally, nationally and internationally.
“I hope I've been seen as very accessible and I've been involved in lots of projects in the constituency, from everything, from Haulbowline Island, to sports clubs, to road infrastructure, to greenways, to obviously having a very busy office to help families and businesses as they need support,” Mr Coveney reflects.
“I'll leave it up to other people to judge whether I've made a positive impact or not.. But for me, I've essentially given 26 years of my life to it. I was privileged to do it, and now it's time for me to test myself somewhere else.”
As 2024 draws to an end, a new government will be formed in the new year, with Fine Gael perhaps entering their fourth term; this time however, without one of their longstanding political figures.
“I entered politics as a very green, very inexperienced young man and for me, it's just been such an incredible privilege,” Simon Coveney reflects. “It's all been possible because people have trusted me and voted for me, and even people who don't vote for me I've found have really been engaging in the constituency and in this town. And I've done my best to repay them.
“So thank you and happy Christmas. Hopefully 2025 will be a better year.”
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