When Simon Coveney was minister for foreign affairs he used an analogy to explain his job to his young daughters, likening politics and diplomacy to building bridges.
You can’t build many bridges in just 10 months, so it is difficult to assess Tánaiste Simon Harris’s time heading up the Department of Foreign Affairs as he takes over as Minister for Finance after Paschal Donohoe’s departure from politics to take up a senior job at the World Bank in Washington, DC.
Sources inside the department and Ireland’s diplomatic service describe Harris as a minister who was liked on a personal level, a strong communicator and seen to handle the fraught transatlantic dispute over trade tariffs well.
However, the same figures highlight Harris’s tendency to be overly concerned with messaging and how things were landing in the press. They also mention his comparatively low footfall abroad and question his management of the competing demands as minister, Tánaiste, and Fine Gael leader.
RM Block
After almost a year on the international stage as taoiseach, the Department of Foreign Affairs was the obvious choice for Harris when picking what ministerial job he wanted in the Coalition Government.
He met department secretary general Joe Hackett in the quiet stretch between Christmas and the new year to start reading himself into the role, while coalition negotiations were still ongoing
Four days after the Government was sworn in on January 23rd, Harris was in Brussels for a meeting of the European Union’s 27 foreign ministers. He had represented Ireland at a high-level summit of EU leaders as taoiseach the month before.
Two discussions Harris had on the margins of that foreign ministers meeting would say a lot. Harris sat down with EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, a key figure in tariff negotiations between Brussels and Washington, and Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares, a close ally of Ireland on Gaza.
US president Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda threatened to blow up the transatlantic trading relationship that underpins Ireland’s economic success.
The State’s diplomatic engine had to kick into a gear not seen since the Brexit days, to avoid a damaging EU-US trade war.
[ Simon Harris is a skilled politician. But is he Minister for Finance material?Opens in new window ]
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm led by Ursula von der Leyen that steers trade policy, was under pressure from French president Emmanuel Macron and others to square up to Trump.
Ireland, in contrast, was one of the loudest voices for caution, appealing for the EU to avoid antagonising Trump and escalating the dispute.
Of particular concern was the suggestion that US tech multinationals with bases in the State could be targeted by Brussels if matters escalated.
“He conveyed Ireland’s unique exposure to the EU-US trade complications very well at the European level,” one commission official said of Harris.
A big focus was put on forging direct links to the Trump administration. Harris spoke to US secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick and trade envoy Jamieson Greer several times.
That was tricky during those early, chaotic months. An initial phone call between Harris and Lutnick in March was repeatedly delayed over the course of the day. By the time Harris and the commerce secretary finally spoke it was 1am Irish time and Harris had to take the call sitting in the kitchen of his Co Wicklow home.
The EU ultimately agreed to suck up tariffs of 15 per cent to draw a line under the months of destabilising uncertainty .
Harris is credited by Jonathan Tonge, professor of politics at University of Liverpool, with making a “significant contribution” to improved relations between Dublin and London. Tonge, who has written extensively about Northern Ireland politics, said he was “greatly assisted” by the change in UK government.
Harris, then taoiseach, was the first foreign leader to visit the UK after Labour leader Keir Starmer became prime minister last year. A picture of the pair at the prime minister’s country residence at Chequers enjoying a pint and engaging in Guinness diplomacy pointed to friendlier Irish-British relations after the tensions of the Brexit years.
As minister for foreign affairs Harris had extensive behind-the-scenes talks with Hilary Benn, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to resolve thorny Troubles legacy issues. Those close to Harris single out his work helping to broker a recent agreement in that area as one of his major achievements this year.
[ Simon Harris denies latest Troubles legacy proposals are ‘last roll of the dice’Opens in new window ]
One criticism repeated by several sources in Iveagh House and the wider Irish diplomatic circuit is that Harris could appear stretched at times. His responsibility, alongside Taoiseach Micheál Martin, to keep the wider Coalition show on the road, and his role as Fine Gael leader, fuelled a sense that his focus was pulled away from his department at times.
Harris undertook 18 official trips abroad as minister, according to figures from the department. That included regular travel to EU meetings in Brussels and Luxembourg and several trips to the US and the UK. He also travelled to a G20 summit of foreign ministers in Johannesburg. Excluding a trip stateside, he undertook one purely “bilateral” visit as minister for foreign affairs, to Berlin in July.
In comparison, when Martin was minister for foreign affairs the Fianna Fáil leader clocked up 28 official overseas trips in 2023, travelling to China, Ukraine, South Africa, Cairo, Israel and the West Bank, as well as the usual roster of EU meetings and visits to the US and UK.
If the amount of overseas travel was down under Harris, the number of statements and press releases issued by his department was definitely up, multiple sources said.
That sometimes rankled the more cautious instincts of career officials and diplomats, who tend to favour the Government pausing and assessing some new development, before commenting publicly.
A strong communicator, the 39-year-old is known to fixate on media coverage. Those in the Harris camp argue that communication is a crucial part of modern government.
“You have to tell people what you’re doing,” one figure close to the Tánaiste said.
Another significant moment of his tenure was bringing legislation to Cabinet to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Whether the finalised Occupied Territories Bill bans both goods and services will be a question his replacement in Iveagh House, Helen McEntee, will have to answer.
“On trade he’d get a better mark than on the pure foreign policy side of things,” said one seasoned Irish official in their assessment.
EU officials who observed him during closed-door meetings of foreign ministers said he could read the room well, tailoring Ireland’s interventions to bring counterparts onside, during debates about Gaza and other topics.
Harris did not shy away from nudging the debate around defence and security forward when wearing his fourth hat, Minister for Defence.
In a speech at an Iveagh House reception for ambassadors from other EU states, Harris said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “fundamentally altered the European security landscape”.
“Political opponents like to caricature a response to oncoming threats to Europe by discussing Nato membership or European armies. These are the simple, polarising arguments of undergraduate seminars from decades ago”, he told dignitaries at the July 1st event. Ireland had to step up with the rest of Europe in response, he said.
Harris pushed for significantly more to be spent on defence and ran up against opposition from the Department of Public Expenditure on this.
In his new job as Minister for Finance he will have a much greater say in how the State manages its finances.
That will entail saying no to the demands of many colleagues for more spending across Government – and probably issuing fewer press releases too.
