Feeble catcalls will hardly upset Phil Hogan

Diarmuid Ferriter obviously had his axe well-honed when he attempted a hatchet job on Phil Hogan in a recent article in The Irish Times. He poured scorn on the former minister and EU commissioner’s ambition to head up the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN. Hogan comes with a near perfect CV for the role, in my view. He has served as both EU Commissioner for agriculture and for trade, and as an environment minister in an Irish Government, not to mention his firsthand knowledge of food production from growing up and working on a farm. However, according to Diarmuid, he carries supposed baggage as a political bruiser who took few prisoners when times were tough in the post-economic-collapse Irish Government of 2011-2014. Ferriter also elucidated on Phil Hogan’s lapses in regard to Covid-19 restrictions, for which he paid a heavy price, forfeiting his position as EU Commissioner for Trade. If every politician’s errors of judgement were punished with a life sentence of being cast into eternal darkness, there would be very few to view in the light of day. Even the former commissioner’s declaration of having made a ‘fulsome’ apology for his Covid shortcomings was admonished by Diarmuid who defined the word as ‘excessive’ or ‘insincere’. A Man of Letters such as he would be fully aware of another, quite contradictory definition of ‘fulsome’ from its original meaning as being ‘abundant’, ‘copious’, or ‘full’. But who are we to question a master of the written word?
As a curious sidenote, UCD, where Diarmuid Ferriter is a history professor, saw fit to confer a degree of Doctor of Science on Phil Hogan in 2024, with Professor J. Peter Clinch, Jean Monnet Full Professor of Public Policy, citing ‘his distinguished contributions in the domains of the environment, rural development, food, climate, the bioeconomy, as well as economics, trade, EU policy and politics’. I suspect Diarmuid did not concur with either UCD’s conferring decision or its accolade of Phil Hogan’s contributions to Ireland and the EU.
The UCD professor also saw fit to query Phil Hogan’s use of his own money to pursue the FAO role, as if self-funding a political campaign is an unheard-of, illegal or, at least, abhorrent practice. The €225,000 salary that comes with the UN role also drew comment from Diarmuid Ferriter, though such a figure is relatively modest in comparison to many public role salaries.
It is to be hoped and expected that Hogan, should he be successful, would expend all his energies and talents in performing the full-time job for which he would be paid.
Not satisfied with criticism of what the professor must feel are major shortcomings in Phil Hogan’s career as a politician, and his fitness, or otherwise, to serve as director general of the FAO, Diarmuid Ferriter’s article also contained what some, at least, would consider snide name-calling of Hogan as ‘Feed the World Phil’, equating him to a self-styled ‘new Bob Geldof’. Most people understand that, while Live Aid sought immediate food aid funding for starving people, the role of the FAO prioritises longer term, strategic programmes for improving food security and the sustainability of agricultural production systems across the planet. The history professor would be aware of that fact. Still, never let the facts get in the way of a feeble catcall.