Green TDs expelled from party over vote
Hourigan and Costello banned over NMH motion
GREEN Party TDs Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello have been expelled from the party for six months for voting in favour of a Sinn Féin motion on the National Maternity Hospital.
A Dáil vote last night was followed by a meeting of the Green parliamentary party.
In a statement last night, a party spokesman confirmed that the Greens ‘agreed to a proposal to remove the party whip and suspend Deputy Patrick Costello and Deputy Neasa Hourigan from the parliamentary party for six months. The decision was reached by consensus. The parliamentary
‘Could not vote against it’
party regrets having to take this step but believes our effectiveness in government relies on unity in every vote.’
The Government’s majority has now been reduced to 80 TDs against the opposition’s 77.
As both TDs have lost the whip, they will now sit on the Independent benches.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party TDs had all been told to abstain from the Dáil vote on the motion which called for full public ownership of the land of the National Maternity Hospital at St Vincent’s Hospital in Elm Park.
Despite Cabinet approving the ownership and governance plans for the new hospital at St Vincent’s earlier this week, critics of the agreement have continued to accuse the Government of failing to properly secure state ownership of a secular hospital.
Mr Costello said last night that he ‘could not in good conscience vote against it’. ‘I know breaking the whip is a serious issue and as I have said earlier I will accept the sanctions imposed from my action,’ he added.
Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor accused Green Party TDs of ‘grandstanding’. He told the Irish Daily Mail that it was ‘imperative’ that work commences on the new NMH as ‘there is no state-of-theart maternity hospital’ in the country. ‘Quite frankly, throughout Government, they’ve been nitpicking on several different policy aspects that we signed up for and voted for in the Programme for Government,’ he said. ‘I think it’s quite high time that they get in behind it. [Their opinions] should have been expressed far earlier than this. Talking about it on the eve of a vote, literally hours beforehand, is just unacceptable. ‘It is no way to do business.’ He added: ‘Some of the Green Party members seem to think that they’re above everybody else when it comes to the pecking order and how to vote.’
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar stated yesterday that if a Fine Gael TD voted against the Government they would lose the party whip. He added that he was not surprised when Fine Gael ministers objected to the Cabinet memo on NMH as his team should have seen it in earlier . He added: ‘He [Minister Donnelly] accepts that as well because I have had that conversation with him.’