Chaos in the Dáil as row over rights of independents hits nomination of PM
Share:
With Micheál Martin due to visit president to be appointed, Irish parliament is adjourned, as Sinn Féin attacks ‘ruse’. The formal nomination of Micheál Martin as Ireland’s new prime minister was hit by chaotic scenes in the Dáil that led to the parliamentary session being suspended several times.
The row, which the speaker failed to control, centred on the speaking rights of independent TDs who have formally agreed to back a coalition government of the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties to be led by Martin. The Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said it it “took the biscuit” that the independents would sit on opposition benches, claiming it was a cynical ruse by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to give their supporters the same speaking rights as the opposition.
She said the attempt was “a ruse” and a “cynical move” by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael “to place their independent cronies, supporters of the government, on the opposition benches and to afford them the same speaking rights of the opposition”.
The new speaker, Verona Murphy, initially suspended the Dáil for 15 minutes but upon return she was forced to suspend it again for more than an hour amid bedlam on opposition benches. Just after 1pm, the time Martin was due to travel across Dublin to Áras an Uachtaráin, the official residence of the Irish president, where Michael D Higgins was to formally appoint him, the Dáil was adjourned for 45 minutes to allow chief whips find a resolution to the row.
One opposition TD, Labour’s Alan Kelly, said he was “embarrassed” by the situation, which he compared to the United Kingdom parliament in recent years. “We looked over at the Houses of Parliament a couple of years ago during Brexit and said, what a laugh, what a shambles. Well, are we now going to be the only parliament in the world where members of the government are actually in opposition?”.
