Leo confident deal with FF will last full five-year term Air strikes kill 68 in one day
Party agreement should not ‘drop dead’ after Budget
LEINSTER House’s fragile confidence and supply arrangement could go all the way to the end of a five-year term, Leo Varadkar has revealed.
The agreement almost collapsed less than a month ago, yet the Taoiseach is now prepared to predict it could live beyond its current three-budget sell-by date.
It was established to facilitate a Fine Gael-led minority Government.
And Mr Varadkar said he would not like to see the deal “drop dead” after next year’s Budget.
Some say the tough negotiations that saw the party and Fianna Fail go to the brink over the Frances Fitzgerald controversy, before she fell on her own sword, may have inured all sides to the agreement and strengthened it going forward.
Mr Varadkar said: “Well, confidence and supply runs until the Budget, which will be October of next year.
“I think at a certain point, we will have to have a conversation.”
He was speaking to political reporters during an end-of-year round-table interview. Varadkar Martin Indicating his preference for the deal to keep running, Mr Varadkar added: “It is, as you know, an agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail so at a certain point we will have to have a conversation.
“Built in to it is a review and potentially it could be continued.
“I certainly see no reason why it can’t be continued beyond the third budget.
“But obviously that is a matter to discuss with Micheal Martin in the first instance, and we haven’t yet – then the two parties subsequently.”
When asked how soon potential talks for an extension could begin, he said it would not be early in the New Year at any rate.
Mr Varadkar added: “Not the first quarter, no, but I wouldn’t like to see it drop dead the day after the budget either.”
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael spent months locked in negotiations following the General Election of Spring 2016.
It was not clear who would lead, with neither party able to form a majority.
A compromise was finally reached, with Fianna Fail supporting Fine Gael and six ministers from the Independent Alliance and Independent Opposition ranks. TWO air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war killed 68 civilians in 24 hours.
The United Nations said Tuesday’s first raid on a busy market left 54 people dead.
The second killed 14 members of the same family.