All of this is speculation.
Later in the summer or some time in the autumn, there will be a cabinet reshuffle. I guess that Bertie Ahern will try to answer the protest vote by promoting fresh blood. We’ll see some younger ministers, and quite a few current guys will be put out to pasture. Top of the list, I expect, will be the directors of elections — John O Donoghue and Martin Cullen. If not for their poor performances in their jobs to get more FF candidates elected (to say the least) at least because the former has been on a slippery slop for the last two years anyway and because the latter made such haymes of the introduction of electronic voting.