DUBLIN — Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has been elected Ireland’s prime minister after a two-day tussle with opposition chiefs — but the unprecedented ordeal has underscored a sense that his new coalition rests on shaky ground.
Sinn Féin opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald emerged vindicated and strengthened after Martin conceded defeat in the first big fight of what should be his government’s five-year term.
After backroom negotiations overnight and throughout the morning, Martin gave Sinn Féin what it wanted — a promise that lawmakers from his coalition’s third and smallest component, the Regional Independents, wouldn’t be allowed to masquerade as opposition lawmakers competing with Sinn Féin for speaking time.
“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.
Battles to come
Following November’s election, Martin’s Fianna Fáil won 48 seats, Harris’ Fine Gael 38 — two short of being able to reach a parliamentary majority on their own in the 174-seat chamber.
Rather than forge an alliance with a smaller left-wing party, as happened in 2020 when they struck a deal with the Greens, this time they turned to the right and the large pool of rural independents.
These mavericks form what are called “technical groups” simply to nail down a right to ask questions each week to the prime minister and other Cabinet ministers. There are three such groups. Under current in-house rules, they are all treated as voices of opposition.
But ever since Martin and Harris struck a government deal that includes the Regional Independents group, those rules no longer fit. Five in that group are being appointed as junior ministers in the government, including two with Cabinet seats; a sixth, Murphy, technically quit the group to become the Dáil’s neutral speaker.
That left only four Regional Independents with no government role — and needing reinforcements simply to meet the Dáil’s rule for technical groups to have a minimum of five. Otherwise they wouldn’t hold down a slot to ask questions.
They recruited a few more real opposition politicians. As of now, this Regional Independent rump has six TDs, only four of whom are “real” Regional Independents committed to voting for the government.
For now, Martin’s coalition math adds up. In Thursday’s leadership vote, he won 95 votes — exactly the total expected.
But it’s not a given this will stay the case if the four non-minister Regional Independents lose their parliamentary voice — or suffer casualties.
That is Sinn Féin’s next apparent target — to try to embarrass Martin over his dependence on the Regional Independents and particularly its Teflon-coated Tipperary kingmaker: Michael Lowry.
When Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty nominated his boss, McDonald, to be Taoiseach, he spent less time praising her and more time attacking Lowry.
Lowry, a former government minister and Fine Gael chairman, was expelled from the party in 1996 over corruption claims connected to two of Ireland’s wealthiest men — claims largely proven, but still rejected by Lowry, at the end of mammoth fact-finding tribunal in 2011. As an independent, Lowry has continued to top the poll at every election in North Tipperary since.
In his speech, Doherty launched fresh corruption claims against Lowry, including accusations that he had burned financial records rather than hand them over to the tribunal and funneled British cash of unknown provenance via a Gibraltar bank account as part of a land investment connected to a football team. He then quoted Martin’s own 2011 condemnations of Lowry to the Fianna Fáil chief across the floor.
“Back then you wanted Michael Lowry investigated. Now you want him in the bosom of government. Now you allow him to play the part of kingmaker. Now you hand him substantial influence over this government,” Doherty said in remarks directed at Martin across the chamber.
“Did he burn the documents? Where did the Gibraltar payments come from? And why, why did he lie to the tribunal?” Doherty said as Martin scowled and shook his head.
Lowry — who led the Regional Independents’ negotiating team in government formation talks, but is not receiving a ministerial post — offered no immediate comment Thursday, but he has consistently rejected the tribunal’s 2011 findings. He likewise says he has no case to answer in an evidence file sent this month by police to state prosecutors stemming from that corruption probe.
If Sinn Féin can lop a leg off the government stool, McDonald could recover her previous 2020-2023 status as Ireland’s Taoiseach-in-waiting. She received 76 votes in her failed bid Thursday, winning votes from four smaller left-wing parties that the previous day had joined with Sinn Féin in deadlocking the Dáil.
“Any attempt to railroad us will be met head-on without fear or hesitation. We will stand our ground,” she told Martin minutes before the leadership vote. “Today will not be our day. But our day will come.”
The post Micheál Martin elected Irish prime minister after chaotic opposition showdown appeared first on Politico.
