Irish parliament to reconvene after unprecedented row over speaking time
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The Irish parliament is to reconvene a day after a chaotic row over how speaking time should be allocated to government-affiliated independents. A meeting of opposition party leaders is expected to be held early on Thursday morning in order to agree a resolution before the Dail resumes.
Efforts to appoint an Irish premier after November’s general election failed as the opposition disrupted proceedings to protest the matter on Wednesday. Central to the row is a move to allocate opposition speaking time to some independents who had been involved in government formation talks.
Opposition parties said this would dilute the practice of holding government to account and eat into their time to raise issues. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin was expected to be nominated as taoiseach when the Dail reconvened, as part of a coalition deal with Fine Gael, the regional independent group and Kerry brothers Michael and Danny Healy-Rae.
But several interruptions meant that what would have traditionally been a day of political ceremony in the Dail parliament never got underway with the Ceann Comhairle, or speaker, halting matters four times. Mr Martin called the disruption by opposition “anti-democratic” and said it was a “subversion” of the Irish Constitution.
Fine Gael leader and presumptive minister for foreign affairs Simon Harris described the activities as “stunt politics on speed”. “(Sinn Fein leader) Mary Lou McDonald came into Dail Eireann today with one intention and one intention only, to stop Micheal Martin being elected taoiseach, and therefore, to deprive the people of Ireland of the outworkings of the last general election,” Mr Harris said.
