LAST UPDATE | 8 Jul 2022
SINN FÉIN WILL table a motion of no-confidence in the Government today.
Sinn Féin’s President Mary Lou McDonald confirmed that the motion would be tabled at 9am this morning, with it set to be held before the Dáil breaks for the summer next week.
The move to table the motion comes after the Government lost their majority on Wednesday, after Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh voted against the Government on mica redress legislation.
McHugh has since resigned the Fine Gael whip, leaving the Government with the confirmed support of just 79 TDs, one short of a majority.
Speaking to Morning Ireland this morning, McDonald said that the Government had “run out of road”.
“This Government has lost its majority. It can certainly cobble together majorities for votes on a one-by-one basis but two years on we believe this Government has run out of road,” McDonald said.
“They’re out of time, they’re out of ideas. We think it is important now that not just Sinn Féin as the leaders of opposition, but the entire opposition, including independent TDs hold them to account, and bring their tenure to an end.”
“I think we’re at a point now that the case for and the need for change in Government is unanswerable.”
Yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told reporters that the Government welcomes the opportunity to prove it has a working majority.
“We have a good working majority. We welcome the opportunity that will present to us to outline the fact that this has been a competent and good government,” said an Taoiseach.
He said that it was not an unexpected move from Sinn Féin, adding that opposition parties from time to time put down no-confidence motions in the last week of the parliamentary term.
He defended the Government’s record on issues like the response to Covid-19, climate change and housing.
“We have a lot to say in terms of policy: education, health and of course housing, where the Housing for All represents the most comprehensive suite of policies that have been advanced by any political party in the country,” said Martin.
Ministers Darragh O’Brien and Paschal Donohoe told reporters this afternoon that they were looking forward to the motion, with Donohoe criticising Sinn Féin for bringing it forward.
Ministers @DarraghOBrienTD and @Paschald have said that they are "looking forward" to debating the motion of no-confidence put forward by Sinn Fein this morning pic.twitter.com/iSJBdq1M5F
— Tadgh McNally (@TadghMcN) July 8, 2022
“Sinn Féin are only interested in creating a culture of instability at a time in which we can see the dangers of instability elsewhere,” said Donohoe.
“I look forward to the opportunity actually next week if that’s what Sinn Féin want to use their time on, on a no-confidence motion is debating that with them and showing what we have done in the area of housing,” said O’Brien.
“Next week actually affords us an opportunity across all the different sectors that we’ve been working on, all the different ministries, to put forward what Government actually has been doing.”
Justice minister Helen McEntee said Sinn Féin was “talking out of both sides of their mouth”.
“They have spent the last week criticising all of us for the fact that there isn’t enough time being given for legislation to pass through, that motions have been put through quickly.
“And yet, we now have a motion that is going to take up hours of Dail time this week in our last week, which is not going to do anything because I have full confidence that government will actually pass this, or will will succeed in in the no confidence motion,” McEntee said.
The Rural Independent Group of TDs announced this afternoon that they will not be supporting the “brain-dead government” which they said is “bereft of ideas or purpose”.
The group’s leader Mattie McGrath said: “The problem with this Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party government is that they think their job is to hold the people accountable to the government rather than the government accountable to the people.”
Independent TD Michael McNamara also said that he would be voting no-confidence in the Government.
McNamara was critical of the Government for bringing forward large volumes of new legislation and not providing enough time for the Dáil to scrutinise that legislation.
“This government is, while going abroad and talking about the importance of democracies, showing a disdain for the legislative process and the democratic process,” McNamara said.
“There’s an abject lack of humility by this Government and also a lack of recognising that the opposition equally have a mandate and the opposition equally have a job to do in scrutinising legislation.”
He added that it was not just the opposition who had raised concerns, and that some Green Party TDs had voiced their concern over rushed legislation.
McHugh was the latest Government TD to lose the whip, following the Green Party’s Patrick Costello and Neasa Hourigan, who voted against the Government over the National Maternity Hospital controversy.
Additional reporting from David Raleigh and Céimin Burke
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