They seemed like the bright young stars of Leo Varadkar's cabinet, the men who could sort out intractable problems in Housing and Health with their boundless energy and enthusiasm.

Eoghan Murphy as Housing Minister at 36 and Simon Harris as Health Minister at 31 are the youngest members of the government.

They took on two of the most difficult posts in government with limited experience after a meteoric rise in politics following their election to the Dáil in 2011.

But now seasoned observers of the political scene are beginning to wonder whether they rose too far too fast in government.

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Has their lack of experience made it difficult for them to navigate the administrative system and implement any kind of coherent plan in the corners of government that have been dubbed the 'Departments of Doom'?

Is this government lacking a grizzled veteran like Michael Noonan. He may have borne the countenance of a Minister for Hardship in an age of austerity, and he himself almost destroyed his career in the Department of Health through his insensitivity to Hepatitis C victims. But at least he knew his way around the corridors of power and was not overawed by civil servants.

There have been murmurings that both Harris and Murphy would like nothing better than an election - so that they could move into more congenial jobs.

If the crises in their respective departments continue without any obvious improvement, Leo's onward march to victory in the next election is by no means guaranteed, however.

Many in the electorate are fortunate enough to enjoy good health, so the horror stories in health may not necessarily affect how they vote, so long as they have a healthy bank balance.

But housing may be a different matter. There is a growing cohort of the population affected by the housing crisis - from the low-paid worker shut out of social housing, the student struggling with unaffordable rents, to the middle income family unable to climb onto the property ladder.

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Eoghan Murphy arrived in his ministry in the Customs House in June of last year with his sleeves carefully rolled up in the style of Barack Obama.

There were high hopes that he could light a spark in his department by revamping Simon Coveney's Rebuilding Ireland plan, boost housing supply and cut homelessness. He was the man to get the diggers moving.

One year on, the shine has definitely come off the gleaming Murphy machine - and this week he seemed to bend and twist in spectacular verbal contortions in a radio interview with Miriam O'Callaghan.

While conceding that homelessness was rising and that the latest figures for July were up yet again, he insisted that Fine Gael's housing policies were working. One was reminded of Saddam Hussein's notorious propagandist, Comical Ali.

While those who deal with him say he is affable, well-intentioned and dedicated to the job, he can come across as highly defensive.

He has had to deal with jibes about his "posh boy" background and claims that he is out of touch.

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He grew up in Sandymount along the leafy lanes of Dublin 4 and was educated at the fee-paying St Michael's College and UCD - before taking a job in the United Nations.

Instead of brushing the "posh boy" taunts aside, Murphy showed his defensive side this week by regaling listeners with an apologia dripping with sanctimony.

He said he had many opportunities and privileges in life, and his parents had instilled in him an emphasis on education and public service. He felt the best way to fulfil this public service obligation was to go into politics and give opportunities to other people.

The problem for Murphy is that his noble and pious aspirations are not yet matched with any notable achievements.

Whatever about his motives, homelessness has smashed new records on his watch. And the problems for ordinary homebuyers and renters show little sign of abating.

The figures show there were 9,891 people living in hotels, bed and breakfasts and family hubs in July, up from 9,872 people in June.

The figures consisted of 6,024 adults and a staggering 3,867 children.

While the number of new homes built has risen to 8,000 in the first half of this year and the number could hit 16,000 by the end of the year, provision of social and affordable housing has been painfully slow.

Murphy has not succeeded in mobilising city and councils to build new homes. This week, he said his department is reliant on local authorities to build social housing, saying that some were building and some were not and that others were facing significant delays. It was a frank and somewhat rueful admission of powerlessness.

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One housing official told Review the relationship between Murphy's department and the local authorities is "extremely dysfunctional".

"They ought to be working together, but often they are working against each other," said the official.

Other close observers of the workings of Murphy's department say there is very little effective oversight of what is done in local authorities.

The government has not only failed to build homes for the poorest sections of society after seven years of Fine Gael in office. It has also left those in the next tier up struggling to find affordable roofs over their heads.

Huge tracts of land in public ownership have not yet been put to use for the building of affordable homes, either for rent or purchase.

Simon Brooke, head of policy at the housing agency Cluid, says Murphy could prevent homelessness immediately by introducing a two-year rent freeze.

While the crisis for those on low incomes is already chronic, it is also affecting those with household incomes above €35,000. They face a squeeze because they are not entitled to social housing, but they cannot afford to rent or buy.

Simon Brooke says Murphy should be ensuring that public land is used to build homes that could be rented out at affordable rates, but little has been done to ensure that happens.

The future career paths of Murphy and his younger colleague Harris could depend on their relationship with Leo Varadkar as much as their record in their troubled ministries.

Leo owes Murphy a debt of gratitude for his elevation to the top job in Fine Gael. As a Junior Finance Minister under Kenny, Murphy realised from early on which way the wind was blowing in Fine Gael, and that Leo was the coming man.

The bloodless leadership coup was planned over many months, and Murphy developed the "D-Day" (D was for Declaration) plan, where TDs and senators would declare their support for Varadkar in a carefully orchestrated campaign.

According to one account, the plan was so meticulous and obsessively secretive that Murphy reportedly sellotaped the details on a folded A4 piece of paper on the inside of his pocket.

The Fine Gael backbencher Kate O'Connell no doubt had Murphy, a constituency colleague, in mind when he referred to Varadkar supporters in the leadership campaign as "choir boys singing for their supper".

Harris, by contrast, was in the camp of Simon Coveney during the leadership campaign and might easily have been dropped from the cabinet when Varadkar took over.

In the new biography, Leo Varadkar - A Very Modern Taoiseach, the Fine Gael leader revealed that he had a "strange relationship" with Harris before the leadership campaign and decided to keep him in Cabinet only after the Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald spoke up for him.

Although Harris and Varadkar are said to have a good relationship now, how long will the Taoiseach stick by him if there are no noticeable improvements to the health service?

Harris, who first made his name as a teenage campaigner on behalf of people with autism, came into the Dáil as the youngest TD at the age of 24, and quickly made an impression with a blast of extravagant rhetoric.

He was selected by Fine Gael to nominate Enda Kenny for Taoiseach and told the Dáil: "Today, the period of mourning is over for Ireland. Today, we hang out our brightest colours and together, under Deputy Kenny's leadership, we move forward yet again as a nation."

Kenny quickly repaid the compliment, appointing him as Junior Minister in the Office of Public Works in 2014, and then as Minister for Health.

As speculation mounted last year that he might run for the leadership when Enda Kenny stepped down, he showed sensitivity to the charge that he was too young for the job.

"Age to me is immaterial," he said during an engagement at University College Galway. "I look to be judged on my job and the job that I am doing, and I am working as hard as I possibly can at that job."

Before he became minister, he railed at how the country manages to spend billions on healthcare while challenges still exist.

"Money alone is clearly not the solution. We need to change the very way we deliver our health services if we really want to get on top of the budget problems," Harris wrote.

But almost two-and-a-half years after he became Health Minister, Harris has not managed to sort out the problems that have bedevilled his predecessors: long waiting lists; patients left on trolleys in emergency wards; and a lumbering health service bureaucracy that is antiquated, expensive and inefficient.

Harris's critics argue that there has been a lot of bluster from the minister and that he is a great man for bringing out reports, but not a lot has been achieved.

In defence of the minister, it is a job that comes with low expectations, and his predecessor, the Taoiseach, did not enjoy greater success in grappling with the perennial issues.

Harris might boast that overall waiting lists for patients to be treated or seen at hospitals have been reduced slightly recently to just over 700,000, but these figures still remain alarmingly high.

The HSE recently boasted that 60pc of the patients on waiting lists are now waiting less than six months for their treatment while more than a third (36pc) wait less than three months. But those figures themselves reveal the dearth of expectations.

Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems at Dublin City University, says: "If you had waiting times like that in the public health service in Germany there would be a riot."

Prof Staines welcomes the minister's plans to implement the Slaintecare report, the blueprint for the future of the health service, and his declared intention to appoint a board to oversee the HSE.

But he says the minister has done little to shift the emphasis in the health service away from hospitals towards primary care.

"He is dealing with a system that has many moving parts that do not fit well together.

"We have a very odd system where we have free access to hospitals but no free access to primary care. It doesn't make sense."

Professor Staines says it is "insane" that the government had spent four years negotiating a contract with GPs.

So long as the crisis in the health service goes on and housing remains unaffordable, the two precocious prodigies of the cabinet will continue to be in the firing line. But it is much too early to write off their careers.

Both have shown considerable political skill: Harris in presiding over the removal of the eighth amendment on abortion; and Murphy in working behind the scenes to elevate Varadkar to the top job.

If they can now engineer a general election victory for Leo, all will be forgiven, and they will live to fight another day in what they hope will be more rewarding ministries.

Fallen stars: Eoghan and Simon

Eoghan Murphy

Age: 36

Education: St Michael's College and UCD (Philosophy and English)

Little-known fact: He played the role of Hamlet in the school play - and once tried to join the Progressive Democrats.

Simon Harris

Age: 31

Education: St. David's Secondary School, Greystones. Dublin Institute of Technology (Journalism and French)

Little-known fact: Harris was an early Fianna Fáil supporter and at 16 was delivering leaflets for his local TD Dick Roche.

Indo Review