“I welcome the fact that the government has now finally acknowledged that there has to be a differentiation between government and opposition, and that no TD (lawmaker) can be in government and opposition at the same time,” McDonald told the parliament, describing the government U-turn as “in accordance with logic.”
The seemingly obvious outcome had been resisted by Martin and his main coalition partner, Simon Harris’ fellow center-ground party Fine Gael, on the grounds that their existing coalition retains a parliamentary majority only if they can keep the Regional Independents happy — and that means, in part, giving them guaranteed speaking rights in debates.
But following Wednesday’s opposition rebellion that blocked Martin’s election and prevented formation of a new government, a chastened speaker, Verona Murphy, announced that she wouldn’t recognize the Regional Independents’ right to a speaking slot in the leadership debate.
Instead, a new all-party committee will reform the operating rules of the Dáil Éireann parliament.
It will be tasked with defining a new system for how more than 20 non-party independents — mostly rural and conservative, many with past ties to Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael — will be given their time in the parliamentary spotlight.
The existing rules leave the Regional Independents — an umbrella brand name, not a real party — in something of a no-man’s land. Grasping the Dáil arithmetic in Dublin is key to understanding why this matters for forging and sustaining a government to 2029, as Martin and Harris hope to do.
