EDUCATION MINISTER Mary Coughlan will, after all, travel to the United States later this week to attend conferences of guidance counsellors after Labour education spokesperson Ruairí Quinn stepped in to offer a Dáil pairing after Fine Gael refused to offer one.
Fine Gael this morning refused the government’s request that one opposition TD abstain from any Dáil votes where the minister was absent, as is common practice, as it turned up the heat on its narrowing Dáil majority.
As a result, the Tánaiste had been forced to cancel her attendance at a conference in the United States, leading the government to criticise Fine Gael’s tactic which it said was hindering it from securing jobs for the country.
This afternoon, however, Quinn personally offered to abstain from voting in any motions while Coughlan was away, as long as he was convinced the trip was worthwhile, and saying that the conference was “an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed on behalf of the country”.
RTÉ’s Six One News reported that Coughlan had contacted Quinn in the wake of the offer, and that having convinced him of the merits of her trip, the two personally agreed to an arrangement that will see Coughlan miss this week’s sessions in the Dáil in order to attend.
Fine Gael education spokesman Fergus O’Dowd, who would otherwise pair for Coughlan, told the programme that Coughlan had deliberately scheduled her time for Minister’s Questions for Wednesday at 2:30pm while she was due to travel abroad.
He added that the ‘important’ part of the proposed trip was on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and that Coughlan should have striven to remain in Ireland for her allotted time, instead of “dodging the hard questions” on the management of FÁS.
The developments have driven something of a wedge between the two opposition parties, with the two earlier reported to be on the verge of tabling a series of health motions in the Dáil with the hope of forcing renegade government TDs to vote against it and defeat it.
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