Brian Cowen

Brian Cowen (born 10 January 1960) is the current Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland. He took office on 7 May 2008, and heads a coalition government led by his Fianna Fáil party that includes the Green Party and has the support of independent TDs.

He has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the constituency of Laois–Offaly since 1984. He previously served as Minister for Labour (1992–1993), Minister for Energy (1993), Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications (1993–1994), Minister for Health and Children (1997–2000), Minister for Foreign Affairs (2000–2004) and Minister for Finance (2004–2008).He served as Tánaiste from 2007 to 2008. He became leader of Fianna Fáil on the resignation of Bertie Ahern. On 7 May 2008, following the resignation of Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach, Cowen was nominated by Dáil Éireann to replace him and was appointed by the President later that day.

Early and private life

Brian Cowen was born in Clara, County Offaly on 10 January 1960. He grew up at the family home in Clara. He is the son of May and Bernard Cowen, a former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator. The family owned a public house in Clara town, located adjacent to the family home. His father also worked as an auctioneer. From an early age, Brian Cowen frequently worked as a barman in his father's pub. He has two brothers – Christopher and Barry. His brother, Barry, is also involved in politics and is a Fianna Fáil Councillor on Offaly County Council. His other brother, Christopher, is a publican (who, Revenue discovered, had failed to pay taxes), runs the family pub and is the oldest of the Cowen brothers. The old Cowen family home and pub are soon to be demolished to make way for a new development.

Cowen was educated at Clara National School, Ard Scoil Naomh Chiaráin (St. Ciaran's High School), located at Clara, County Offaly, and the Cistercian College of Mount St. Joseph in Roscrea, County Tipperary. He was 12 years old when he entered Mount St Joseph College, as a boarder. After secondary school, he attended University College Dublin where he studied law. He subsequently qualified as a solicitor from the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, Dublin.

Cowen is married to Mary Molloy and they have two daughters.

He is a member of the Gaelic Athletic Association and continues to serve as president of Clara GAA club. He also lined out with the Offaly Gaelic football team in the early 1980s. Cowen likes to socialise with his constituents in some of the local pubs in his native Offaly.In May 2003 he took part in a charity CD project organised by 'The Brewery Tap' pub in Tullamore. All proceeds from the CD went to charity and featured 28 songs, including Cowen singing the Phil Coulter song, "The Town I Loved So Well".

In May 2007, Cowen told Jason O'Toole of Hot Press that, as a student, "I would say there were a couple of occasions when marijuana was passed around – and, unlike President Clinton, I did inhale! There wasn’t a whole lot in it really".

Early political career

Cowen was elected to Dáil Éireann in the Laois–Offaly by-election of 1984, caused by the death of his father. At the time Cowen, at the age of 24, became the youngest member of the 24th Dáil. He was also elected to Offaly County Council in the same year, taking over the seat vacated by his late father. He served on that authority until 1992.

Cowen remained on the backbenches of Dáil Éireann for the next seven years. Following the 1989 general election when Fianna Fáil entered into a coalition government with the Progressive Democrats for the first time, Cowen was one of a number of TDs who were vehemently opposed to the move. Two years later in November 1991 the then Minister for Finance, Albert Reynolds, challenged Charles Haughey for the leadership of the party. Cowen firmly aligned himself behind Reynolds and quickly became associated with the party's so-called '"Country & Western" wing. (Reynolds's supporters earned this nickname due to the fact that the vast majority were rural deputies and that Reynolds had made a lot of money in the dance hall business in the 1960s.) Reynolds became leader on his second attempt, when Haughey was forced to retire as Taoiseach in 1992.

Reynolds appointed Cowen, then just turned 32, to his first cabinet position as Minister for Labour. In spite of being a member of the cabinet, Cowen's attitude to his coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats, was hostile. This was evident at the Fianna Fáil party's Ardfheis in March 1992. In the main warm-up to the leader's address, Cowen remarked, "What about the PDs? When in doubt, leave them out." He rowed with the PDs, being furious at their interference with Fianna Fail's view that, as majority partner, they should have wielded the power.

The 1992 general election produced a hung Dáil and resulted in negotiations getting underway between all the main parties. Cowen, along with Noel Dempsey and Bertie Ahern, negotiated on behalf of Fianna Fáil in an attempt to form a government with the Labour Party. A deal was reached between the two parties, and Cowen was again appointed Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications. In that role he implemented the controversial decision to relax the so-called stopover at Shannon Airport, which allowed limited direct trans-Atlantic flights from Dublin Airport. The decision proved divisive and saw one Fianna Fáil TD, Síle de Valera, resign from the party in protest.

In October 1994 it was revealed that Cowen had 1,000 shares in Arcon, a company to which he was in the process of awarding a mining licence. He quickly sold the shares and apologised in the Dáil for causing himself and his colleagues "some embarrassment".

Later in 1994 Albert Reynolds resigned as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil. Bertie Ahern became the new leader; however the party was now in opposition. Cowen was appointed to the front bench, first as spokesperson on Agriculture, Food and Forestry (1994) and later as spokesperson on Health (1997).

Cabinet career: 1997–present

Minister for Health and Children

When Fianna Fáil returned to power following the 1997 general election, Cowen was appointed to the newly expanded position of Minister for Health & Children. Cowen himself described his period there as like being in Angola because landmines can go off without any warning. During his tenure he had to deal with problems of bed shortages and overcrowding in hospitals, as well as a prolonged nurses strike in 1999. It came as a relief to Cowen when he vacated the Ministry for Health & Children on being appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in January 2000.

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Cowen's tenure as Foreign Minister saw extensive negotiations continue regarding the Northern Ireland peace process and other international activities, particularly when Ireland gained a place on the United Nations Security Council. In 2003 Cowen, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, was the victim of a personal attack by the leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, Ian Paisley, a former outspoken critic of the Republic of Ireland and its government. In front of a crowd of party supporters and in the presence of television cameras and radio reporters, Paisley launched into a diatribe about Cowen's personal appearance before also insulting his mother. In 2004 Cowen played a key role during Ireland's Presidency of the European Council and the simultaneous expansion of the 

European Union.

Minister for Finance

Following the departure of Charlie McCreevy in September 2004 Cowen became Minister for Finance. On 1 December 2004 Cowen announced his first budget, a budget that was generally seen as a give-away budget in which spending was increased by 9%.

Cowen's second budget in 2005 was dominated by a new childcare package, and measures to take 'tax-free millionaires' back into the tax net from 2007 by restricting tax breaks. A readjustment of income-tax measures were designed to take 52,000 low earners out of the tax net and remove 90,000 middle earners from the higher tax band.

Cowen's third budget in 2007, in anticipation of the 2007 general election, was regarded as one of the biggest spending sprees in the history of the state. The €3.7 billion package included increases in pension and social welfare allowances, a marked green agenda, as well as a reduction in the top rate of income tax from 42% to 41%. Cowen has been criticised for being allegedly complacent during the economic turmoil in January 2008.

Leader of Fianna Fáil and Taoiseach

Brian Cowen presenting President Barack Obama with a bowl of Shamrock for Saint Patrick's Day at the White House.

Cowen in Philadelphia

During his ministerial career, Cowen was often touted in the media as the front-runner to succeed Bertie Ahern as leader of Fianna Fáil. Cowen's position was strengthened when he succeeded Mary O'Rourke as Deputy leader of the party in 2002. Subsequently he was appointed Minister for Finance, seen as an almost mandatory position for any aspiring Taoiseach.

Cowen was confirmed as the sole nominee for the position of Leader of Fianna Fáil on 5 April,[29] having been nominated by Brian Lenihan and by Mary Coughlan on 4 April.He was elected as the seventh leader of Fianna Fáil on 9 April 2008, and assumed office on 6 May.

On 7 May 2008 Cowen was nominated by Dáil Éireann as Taoiseach. He was nominated by 88 votes to 76, and was appointed by President Mary McAleese. He then formed the 28th Government of Ireland. His choices for Tánaiste and Minister for Finance were criticised as inappropriate by The Irish Times.

An article in The Irish Times on 14 November 2008, reporting the results of an opinion poll, noted that "satisfaction with the Government has dropped to a record low of 18 per cent, a drop of 28 points since the last Irish Times poll in June, while satisfaction with Taoiseach Brian Cowen has fallen to 26 per cent, a drop of 21 points." This was the lowest level recorded since Irish Times polling began more than a quarter of a century previously.

In December 2008, Cowen was ranked second last in a list of the best leaders in Europe in 2008, by a French business newspaper, La Tribune, who asked 12 senior European correspondents from nine countries to rate the 27 heads of government in the EU. As Miram Lord of The Irish Times, reporting on the result of their straw poll, noted, French President Nicolas Sarkozy placed first, while Brian Cowen was placed 26th out of 27.

Cowen has been accused by an Irish Independent columnist of making an incorrect "decisive" decision in relation to the Irish pork crisis of 2008, by agreeing with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland withdrawal of Irish pork from the market, for a five day period, due to dioxin contamination in a small percentage of the pig stock, ultimately costing the taxpayer some €180 million.

Cowen has been accused of a lack of leadership at a time of national crisis, and of seeking to rely on consensus-building instead of strong decision-making.

On 18 January 2009 an editorial in The Sunday Times was highly critical of Cowen, calling him a "dismal failure".

On 28 February 2009, a Millward Brown IMS poll opinion poll found that Cowen had only a 21% public satisfaction rating, while his finance minister, Brian Lenihan and Tánaiste Mary Coughlan had satisfaction ratings of 21% and 23% respectively.On 1 March 2009 in The Sunday Business Post, Red C opinion poll, Fianna Fáil's support was down five points to 23%.

The elections of 5 June 2009 saw Fianna Fail perform badly, losing half its European Parliament seats. On 9 June, Fine Gael tabled a motion of no confidence against Cowen. He survived the vote by a thin margin of 85-79.

On 3 September 2009 an Irish Times /TNS mrbi poll, opinion poll reported that, Cowen’s satisfaction rating with the electorate dropped six points to 15 per cent, with 77 per cent of voters saying they were dissatisfied with the way he is doing his job.

In a speech to the Dail on 1 December 2009 after the release of the Murphy Report and from the lack of assistance from the Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, and most recently, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, Cowen said, he contended that the Holy See had acted in good faith by insisting that, as the Commission was a body set up by Government, all communications to the Vatican State should have been routed through diplomatic channels in accordance with international law and customs. Cowen said that “It is not unreasonable to assume the Holy See was open to responding to a further approach through formal diplomatic channels”.

In February 2010 Cowen defended his claim that the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) will increase the supply of credit into the economy despite the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying it would not lead to any significant increase. “People should contemplate what level of credit accessibility we’d have in this economy without NAMA,” he said. “It’s not just sufficient in itself obviously for credit flow, it’s certainly an important and necessary part of restructuring our banking system, of that there’s no doubt, in terms of improving as a location for funding of banking operations,” said Mr Cowen. He previously said that the Government’s objective in restructuring the banks through NAMA was to “generate more access to credit for Irish business at this critical time”. In September 2009, the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan expressed a similar view, saying it would lead to more lending for business and households. Cowen was responding to reports published on 8 February that the IMF had told Brian Lenihan in April 2009 that the NAMA would not lead to a significant increase in lending by the banks.

The comments, which appear in internal Department of Finance documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, were made by senior IMF official Steven Seelig who will join the board of NAMA in May 2010. Minutes of a private meeting at the department between Mr Lenihan and IMF officials on 29 April 2009 last state that the “IMF (Mr Seelig) do not believe that Nama will result in significant increase in bank lending in Ireland”. The Government has maintained that NAMA's purchase of bad loans from the banks with State bonds would increase the flow of credit in the economy since the plan was unveiled April 2009. Speaking at the publication of the NAMA legislation in September 2009, Mr Lenihan said it would “strengthen and improve” the funding positions of the banks “so that they can lend to viable businesses and households”. The IMF estimated in their published report the domestic banks would face losses of up to €35 billion, though the department pointed out this would be partly funded from operating profits and provisions already taken against some loan losses.

In an opinion poll published on 28 March 2010, just 27 per cent of voters believed that he had been a good Taoiseach and only 29 per cent believed that he could lead Ireland out of recession.

Speaking on RTÉ on 15 May 2010, Cowen said that, in hindsight, he should have introduced a property tax to cool the property boom. Responding to the Taoiseach’s defence of his actions as minister for finance, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny accused him of “washing his hands” on his role in Ireland’s economic crisis. Speaking during a front bench meeting in Cork Mr Kenny also claimed Fianna Fáil was spreading fear by considering cuts to the old age pension. “Sorry is a word that Fianna Fáil do not recognise, they don’t understand,” Mr Kenny told party colleagues. Mr Kenny said Taoiseach Cowen, in defending his own personal handling of events, was refusing to acknowledge that he drove the economy “up on the rocks” for four years when he was minister for finance. “He expects everybody else to accept responsibility for it but not him. It’s another example of hands being washed by those in charge, a refusal to accept responsibility for their part in destroying the Irish economy and heaping economic woes . . . upon so many people.” The Fine Gael leader said the best thing the Taoiseach could do now was hold the three pending byelections, or a general election, so the people could have their say.

On 15 June 2010, Cowen faced his second no confidence motion in just over a year, tabled by Fine Gael after the publication of two reports that criticised government policies in the run-up to Ireland's banking crisis. He again survived the motion, 82-77.

First Budget as Taoiseach

Cowen's first budget as Taoiseach in October 2008 was controversial, reflected in an "unprecedented" drop in support for Cowen's party in opinion polls following its announcement. This response forced reversals of proposed changes in several areas, contributing to perceived weakness in his Government.

A further protest on education cuts saw a large protest group gather outside the Dáil.Subsequent to the Budget and the public reaction to it on the street, an opinion poll on 26 October 2008, showed Cowen's party, Fianna Fáil, plummeting to a historic low and opposition Fine Gael leading the main government party by seven percentage points. Cowen admitted, that his authority has been damaged by the unraveling of the Budget and is facing barely concealed disaffection from within his Cabinet. A senior political source said: "The Budget was an accident waiting to happen."

A further opinion poll, taken on 10 & 11 November 2008, found that satisfaction with Cowen's Government performance had collapsed, down to just 18 per cent, a massive fall of 28 percentage points, while support for the principal coalition party, Fianna Fáil, plummeted 15 percentage points to 27 per cent, while that of the alternative party of government, Fine Gael, jumped to 34 per cent, a gain of 11 percentage points.

Under the European Union stability and growth pact, EU states are required to keep their budget deficit to GDP ratio below a 3 per cent limit and maintain a debt/GDP ratio below 60 per cent. On 31 October 2008, the European Commission opened an excessive deficit procedure against the Government for allowing its' budget deficit exceed those limits. The budget deficit is expected to be 5.5 per cent in 2008 and 6.5 per cent in 2009.

In a second emergency budget in April 2009 a fiscal deficit, of 10.75 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) was addressed. Cowen's government's third budget within twelve months saw the government facing the reality of the country nearly becoming insolvent.

Treaty of Lisbon

Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 2008 (Ireland)

The Irish electorate's decision to reject the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon on 12 June 2008 was viewed by some media and political observers as a protest against Cowen and his government. The Irish Independent called the failed referendum's aftermath the government's "biggest political crisis in decades." Columnist Brendan O'Connor called the outcome "a humiliating failure for Cowen and the people who put him there."The Taoiseach himself arguably dealt a damaging blow to his own side when, on 12 May 2008, he admitted in a radio interview that he had not read the Treaty of Lisbon in its entirety.

Public image

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Brian Cowen

Cowen is often referred to in the Irish satirical and tabloid media as BIFFO, a pejorative nickname sometimes applied to people from the midlands county of Offaly. BIFFO is widely understood as an acronym for "Big Ignorant Fecker/Fucker/Fellow From Offaly". Cowen has said that 'BIFFO' stands for "Beautiful Intelligent Fellow From Offaly'.

Cowen was accused of 'conduct unbecoming' in the Dáil, over comments that he made in the Dáil, when at the end of a heated exchange Cowen sat down, and turned to Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and Dáil microphones then picked up the Taoiseach using the word 'fuckers', not in reference to any opposition politician. He subsequently apologised for this remark.

Cowen has been openly criticised by his parliamentary party colleagues including one, who in an interview said Cowen has suffered from "poor communications and consultation" and expressed concern about the emergence of a perceived "triumvirate" (comprising the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance) within the Cabinet.

In a novel criticism sometime artist and teacher Conor Casby[80] placed unflattering nude portraits of Cowen in the National Gallery of Ireland and the gallery of the Royal Hibernian Academy. The portraits were referenced on a national television news bulletin and caused considerable debate in the media.

Cowen was criticised as being inept in the lead-up to the third budget in December 2009, within twelve months, Cowen said "our priority is to stabilise the public finances", a full year after the Irish public was told this was the priority of 2008.

Morning Ireland interview

On September 14 2010, during an early morning radio interview, Cowen was described by Deputy Simon Coveney of Fine Gael, who tweeted about it, as sounding as if he was intoxicated or hungover. Cowen rejected the allegations, describing them as "pathetic". However, this incident has been unfavorably commented upon by the international press.

On the 15th September, he apologised for his performance in this interview, saying "It wasn't my best performance and I would like to apologise for that. I would hate to think the reputation of the country or the office of taoiseach would in any way be affected by what I had to say."  He claimed that there was a hoarseness in his voice and denied that he had been hungover.

(source:wikipedia)