Irish parliament to reconvene after unprecedented row over speaking time

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.

Fianna Fail TD Mary Butler said the opposition showed “a mob mentality” and “proved that they are not fit to govern”, while Sinn Fein said the government’s approach demonstrated “arrogance”.

Of the nine independents supporting the government, five of them are to get government roles.

The four remaining independent TDs, former minister Michael Lowry, Barry Heneghan, Gillian Toole and Danny Healy-Rae, are looking to join a technical group, a mechanism used to allocate opposition speaking time.

The leaders of five opposition parties said that claiming to be in government and in opposition at the same time was “farcical”, “not tenable” and “a clear and patent absurdity”.

Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit accused the government of trying to “subvert and sabotage democracy”, while Independent Ireland’s Michael Collins said the four independents wanted “their bread buttered on both ends”.

It is understood that the Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy met with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald on Wednesday evening to find an agreement.

The meeting on Thursday morning is expected to seek the approval of Mr Martin and Mr Harris to the statement that independent TDs who support a programme for government cannot be in opposition technical groups.

A senior source among opposition parties was optimistic that the Government parties would be receptive to the proposal.