Programme managers were invented by the Labour Party in 1993 when it went into government with Fianna Fáil. Their job was to drive forward political goals at the highest level of each department.
But they were resented by many TDs who saw them as unelected, overpaid obstacles to accessing ministers. Old hands in Leinster House even complained that the newcomers were "hogging the tables" in the self-service restaurant.
The press picked up on this feeling, and before long the words "programme manager" were almost always accompanied by "arrogant, mobile-phone toting", and usually by "Labour".