A new taoiseach and cabinet will be ratified in the Dáil today and then they will be officially appointed when they receive their seals of office from the President Michael D Higgins. Micheál Martin is expected to be approved by the Dáil shortly after 12pm and he will travel to the Áras to receive his seal of office for the second time.
Upon his return to the city centre, the new taoiseach will go to his office in Government Buildings and summon TDs from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who will be members of the new cabinet.
It is accepted that all (or very nearly all) of the current crop of ministers will retain their ministries, if not the same departments. At about 7pm, The Dáil will vote to ratify the new ministers.
Finally, at about 8.30pm, the Government of the 34st Dáil will hold its first cabinet meeting in Áras an Uachtaráin.
Key Reads
- What happens today? Pat Leahy runs through the order of events
- Ireland’s next Cabinet: Who are the front-runners and how do they rank?
- Inside Politics newsletter: Murphy’s Law already rankles opposition
Government TD portrays Opposition gambit as “faux outrage”.
Minister of State Thomas Byrne has said there has been “faux outrage” from the Opposition benches in the Dáil this morning.
Opposition Parties persist in demand for urgent meeting
Duncan Smith, Labour Party whip has just told me that the whips of all the Opposition parties have put in a request to the Clerk of the Dáil, Peter Finnegan, for an urgent meeting of the business committee to discuss the status of the Regional Independents Group, and also the decision to suspend the Dáil for two weeks.
The Dáil is currently suspended. As yet the whips have not received a response to their request.
It seems that the Opposition is adamant that the issue of four TDs supporting the Government being allowed to have Opposition speaking times needs to be resolved - or at least addressed - before any vote for Taoiseach is allowed.
Smith says that a Sinn Féin amendment to the Oder of Business calling for the Dáil to be convened net week, rather than February 5, will be taken once the chamber resumes its business shortly.
There is an element now of digging the heels in. The Opposition will continue to disrupt the Dáíl unless the Ceann Comhairle agrees to a meeting of the business committee - which decides the running of the Dáil. There is an impasse right now, which looks like it could derail the election of the Taoiseach until much later in the day.
The whips are now holding discussions with the Clerk on the matter.
Second Suspension of the Dáil until 12.20
Marie O’Halloran write: Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy has suspended the Dáil for a second time, for 30 minutes, after repeated interruptions when she tried to move the business on to the election of the Taoiseach.
When the Dáil resumed after a 20-minutes suspension Ms Murphy insisted she would deal with the matter of the Regional Independents’ speaking rights “expeditiously” and said that meant before the resumption on February 5th.
But TDs repeatedly interrupted and called for her to state “when will we have the legal advice” she said she had received giving the regional TDs who do not hold Government positions to have opposition speaking time.
Bedlam
And so within a minute of the Dáil resuming after the first suspension, it descended into chaos again.
Verona Murphy tried to take the vote on the Order of Business but it was never going to happen.
A massive shouting match ensued. Out of the cacophony of voices we could hear Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit demanding to see the legal advice on the Regional Independents Group, and the booming voice of Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould trying to make a point of order.
Verona Murphy has suspended the House for 30 minutes.
It’s unlikely that Micheál Martin will be elected Taoiseach before 1pm. The Ceann Comhairle is following the strategy of keeping her cool and not raising her voice. It has been a big test for her on her first day with huge disruption from the off.
The Opposition has successfully sabotaged the pattern of what has traditionally been a day of ceremony.
The Healy-Raes going into Government? The late Jackie would have said “we did the right thing”.
Michael Healy-Rae has been on social media this morning explaining why they will be voting for Micheál Martin to become Taoiseach, and why he will be becoming a member of the Government.
Will Jim O’Callaghan become the next Minister for Justice?
The chatter around the identity of the new Ministers has become more solid over the past 24 hours. On the Fine Gael side at least! Jennifer Carroll MacNeill looks nailed-on as Minister for Health, with Kildare South TD Martin Heyden getting the nod at Agriculture.
There is a little more uncertainty in Fianna Fáil. The only TD who most commentators and TDs agree will be promoted to the Cabinet for certain is Mary Butler from Waterford.
The other two name most mentioned are Jim O’Callaghan from Dublin Bay South and James Browne from Wexford. Either could become Minister for Justice - O’Callaghan has been his party’s spokesman for a long time, and Browne was a junior minister in the Department. Browne is being linked either to Housing or to Environment and Climate Change.
Over the past 24 hours, attention has increasingly focused on O’Callaghan, who was never seen as a Micheál Martin loyalist. However, he played a very prominent role during the election campaign and one source has said the “mood has improved” between him and the party leader.
The first big row and a proposal to suspend the Dáil. Cue chaos.
So Verona Murphy is facing the first mutiny from the Opposition benches. Two of the biggest bruisers on the far side, Matt Carthy and Alan Kelly, have been on their feet with high-decibel responses to some of her recent decisions.
Carthy argued that it was unfair that Sinn Féin was getting less speaking time than Fine Gael even though it was a bigger party. Kelly intimidated that allowing the four Independent Deputies from the group which supports the government to sit on the Opposition benches put the Dáil into jeopardy of becoming a farcical institution.
The Ceann Comhairle, not known for being shy with her opinions, has not risen to the bait and has tried to retain her composure, successfully so far.
Now Pádraig MacLochlainn, the Sinn Féin whip, is on his feet, calling for a suspension of the Dáíl to allow for the business committee to discuss the two-week adjournment which he labels a mistake.
It is all turning into a frenzied shouting match from the Opposition benches. Murphy does not raise her voice.
Matt Carthy shouts: “This is a test of you Ceann Comhairle and you are failing.”
When he refuses to take his seat, the Ceann Comhairle suspends the Dáil for 15 minutes.
Jack Horgan-Jones quoted a Sinn Féin figure yesterday saying that today would be “fractious”. He was not wrong.
Dáil Éireann convenes amid accusations that Government ‘cronies’ being favoured
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy has concluded the prayer. Government Chief Whip Hildegarde Naughton has gone through arrangements for speaking today.
Nominations of Taoiseach to be made shorty. Fianna Fáil’s youngest TD Albert Dolan of Galway East will nominate Micheál Martin.
When Enda Kenny was nominated as Taoiseach in 2011, Fine Gael’s youngest TD was the person who was chosen to give the speech. That TD was Simon Harris, who is now the outgoing Taoiseach.
Mary Lou McDonald is now on her feet criticising the Government.
“The message needs to go to Government, go to work. There is no rationale... for this two week holidays”, she has argued.
She accuses Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of putting “Independent cronies on the Opposition benches”.
She says it has left an unsatisfactory situation where the Government has “afforded to them the same speaking rights as genuine Opposition parties”.
The Labour Party and Social Democrats have also criticised those arrangements.
Will we have a vote on procedure ahead of the vote for Taoiseach?
Precedence for Government-supporting TDs sitting on Opposition benches?
Long-time political observer Dan Sullivan has this interesting take on this question, evoking the experience of Tony Gregory from over 40 years ago.
Dáil chamber is now filling up as 174 TDs take their allotted seats
Marie O’Halloran reports: TDs are starting to arrive into the Dáil chamber and independent Danny Healy-Rae is on his phone, sitting on the Government benches across from his old seat where his former Rural Independent colleagues and now Independent Ireland Party members Michael Collins and Richard O’Donoghue are seated alongside new member and TD Ken O’Flynn.
Row over Regional Independents being classed as ‘opposition’ rages on
Vivienne Clark reports: People Before Proft TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the job of the opposition was to hold the government to account and there was no reason why Leaders and Taoiseach’s questions should not take place next week.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show Mr Boyd Barrett said the two week break was “unacceptable and inexplicable”, given that it had been “dissolved” since the General Election, aside from one day.
“I have constituents breathing down my neck about really serious issues that need to be raised in the Dáil” and this break is unjustifiable”.
This issue linked to the question of “so called independents” wanting to be in opposition to account, he added. “It’s two sides of the same coin.” Members of the technical group had no right to be on opposition benches. “It’s a farcical situation”, he said.
Defending the decision for the two week break, Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Cathal Crowe said there was precedence and with the changes within departments it made good sense to allow ministers take control of their briefs and for departments to be properly established. It certainly isn’t a break. On the issue of Dáil speaking rights, Mr Crowe said Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy would adjudicate fairly on the issue. He did not see this as a big issue and thought it would be resolved today.
Mr Crowe also said that extra expenses for junior ministers are justified. There was an anomaly in this situation that meant junior ministers didn’t receive a travel and accommodation allowance, he explained, and this closed out that anomaly.
“Again, this is not a massive issue”, he said.
Mary Lou McDonald will get speaking time in Dáil this morning
One row at least has been resolved ahead of the Dáil convening. Sinn Féin was said to be furious yesterday when it was told that party leader Mary Lou McDonald would get no speaking time following her nomination as Taoiseach.
It led to what was called a very “direct conversation” last night between her and Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy.
Now it seems all has been settled. In a post on Twitter just now, Ms McDonald has said the Government has backed down “in the face of huge public anger”.
“Sinn Féin will never allow the government to silence us or to silence you,” she writes.
“I will be speaking in the Dáil this morning. Your voice will be heard. The first thing I will do is challenge their attempt to take another two weeks holiday. Government needs to get to work.”
Is adjourning the Dáil for a fortnight the usual practice?
Pat Leahy reports: The Government is seeking to adjourn the Dail for a fortnight after Micheal Martin is elected later today. Despite opposition protests, the incoming Coalition says this is normal when a new government comes into office. Is it right? Not quite.
In 2020, Micheal Martin was elected Taoiseach on June 27, a Saturday. (The Dail was sitting in the National Convention Centre due to pandemic restrictions) The Dail met again the following Tuesday, June 30, and then adjourned for one week, until July 7.
In 2016, Enda Kenny was elected Taoiseach by the Dail on May 6. The Dail adjourned until May 17, a week and a half.
In 2011, Kenny was elected by the Dail on March 9. The Dail adjourned for a week until March 15, and then adjourned for another week until March 22.
Perhaps the more direct precedent is 2007, when Bertie Ahern was elected for the third time. He was elected by the Dail on June 14, after which the Dail adjourned for nearly a fortnight – until June 26.
Less than 30 minutes until Showtime
Hi, it’s Harry McGee who will be guiding you through our live coverage today. The scene is already set. The barriers have been put up outside Leinster House. Already a large crowd has gathered on Moleswsorth Street with a banner proclaiming: “Occupied Territories Bill Now”.
Micheál Martin’s family were spotted in Leinster House earlier this morning. It’s buzzing with new TDs, family members and more experienced TDs from the two big parties, some of them looking amazingly spruced up.
With the support of Independents the election of Micheál Martin as Taoiseach by the Dáil will be a formality. Once he returns from Áras an Uachtaráin after receiving his seal of office, attention will then turn to the selection of Ministers. Names have been bandied around, with increasing degrees of certainty, but there could be a mild surprise or two.
