Simon Harris is about to face an early test in his new role as Minister for Finance that will give him an opportunity to prove his critics wrong or else confirm their doubts. The test will come in the shape of the response to the report of the taskforce on infrastructure, which concluded its deliberations on Thursday.

Since his move to Finance, political opponents and a slew of commentators have cast doubt on Harris’s ability to perform in his new role. It has even been suggested that his lack of academic credentials in economics makes him unfit for the position.

On this point, it is worth recalling that one of the best ministers for finance in the history of the State was Ray MacSharry, who not only didn’t have a Leaving Cert but was reputed to have left school without even his Intermediate Certificate. By contrast Martin O’Donoghue, a professor of economics in Trinity College who drafted much of the 1977 Fianna Fáil manifesto and went on to become minister for economic planning, devised the policies that drove the country into a decade-long recession.

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