Harcourt Street and Manhattan
John A. Costello’s second inter-party government, in office since June 1954, governed the twenty-six counties with Fine Gael, Labour, Clann na Talmhan and Clann na Poblachta represented in the coalition. Seán T. O’Kelly was President, William Norton was Tánaiste, and Gerard Sweetman held the difficult Finance portfolio. The administration inherited neither a constitutional crisis nor an immediate security emergency. Its central political problem was more persistent: how to make independence deliver livelihoods sufficient to retain the population.