Leo issues warning to rebel TDs
Government parties decamped to Dublin’s restaurants and bars as controversy mounted before end of the Dail term, writes
TANAISTE Leo Varadkar has warned TDs and senators will be expelled if they do not support government legislation.
Varadkar’s comments follow the Green Party sanctioning two TDs after they did not vote with the Government.
He said the three governing parties will have to “do things differently” when they return in September.
“The last few weeks were chaotic,” the Fine Gael leader said. “I think all three parties are going to have to do things differently in September and communicate better with each other and our own.”
ON Thursday evening, Junior Minister Pippa Hackett paced up and down the alleyway near the Royal Hibernian Way just off Dawson Street in Dublin city centre.
She was dining with her husband and Green Party councillor Mark Hackett and her Seanad colleague Pauline O’Reilly in the upmarket Isabelle’s restaurant just a stone’s throw from Leinster House.
Despite losing out on a few quid following a U-turn on a €16,000 top-up for ministers of state at Cabinet she still had some spare cash to spend in one the city’s chic restaurants.
But she felt it necessary to leave the stylish eatery to take the call — which came a few hours after Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan voted against the Government on housing legislation.
Hourigan was followed by Green Junior Minister Joe O’Brien, who abstained on the final vote on the legislation to extend a rent freeze and eviction ban but only for those impacted by Covid.
Both later issued statements saying they did not support Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien’s legislation to limit supports for renters to only those who lost earnings because of the pandemic.
The defection by two Green TDs just a month into the life of the new Government infuriated Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs who hoped members of the three governing parties would toe the line until at least six months in.
Hourigan had been earmarked as someone who might jump ship at the first sign of choppy seas but O’Brien is a minister and he was expected to show loyalty to the fledgling Coalition.
The move by the two TDs left newly appointed Government Chief Whip Jack Chambers blind-sided, as were Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Tanaiste Leo Varadkar.
Hourigan had flagged her difficulties with the legislation to her Green colleagues but O’Brien had not been as vocal.
There was speculation on Thursday evening that he may have abstained so as to spread the blame and lessen punishment for Hourigan. The word around the Convention Centre in Dublin was that Green Party leader Eamon Ryan was furious with O’Brien but less so with Hourigan.
Back in the Royal Hibernian Way, Hackett paced the luxury shop-lined mall in the city centre as the Green parliamentary party debated what sanction should be imposed on the two rebel TDs.
Pressure was exerted on Ryan to go easy on the pair for their first indiscretion. Both are popular party members, especially among the government-sceptical wing of the organisation.
They settled on banning them from speaking in the Dail for two months, which in reality meant two weeks as the summer recess began on Friday and TDs will not return for six weeks.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael thought the punishment was farcical.
The Dail sat until after 2.30am on Friday due to a bitter debate about speaking time which resulted in a significant group of Opposition TDs walking out of the Chamber in protest.
It was suspected but not confirmed that among the walk-out protesters was Leas Ceann Comhairle Catherine Connolly, who won a shock vote to land the €38,787-job the previous week.
Fine Gael TD Paul Kehoe raised concerns on the night about Ms Connolly’s potential involvement in the protest given her position as an independent Dail chair but he was overruled by Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail.
However, Kehoe later wrote to Connolly asking her to clarify her position and suggesting she had “undermined” the position she held by siding with the Opposition.
“I would remind you that you were democratically elected by members of Dail Eireann and the result was accepted by all so I would ask did you accept the democratic decision of the house on Thursday?” he said.
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The previous day was an early start for Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys and her team. They gathered around 8am on Wednesday to discuss the growing controversy surrounding the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).
The previous evening the three party leaders had an informal discussion about the payment after a Cabinet sub-committee. It was recognised that there was a problem but there was no official agreement to change tack.
On Wednesday morning, the Taoiseach and Tanaiste both spoke to Humphreys to ask her opinion about what the next move should be.
The minister’s initial reaction was to hold firm having received the backing of some party members. But the controversy was not going away and a fix was needed.
She finally decided to ditch the ban on those in receipt of the payment travelling to Green List countries and alerted the leaders to the policy change before announcing it in the Dail.
**************** Wednesday evening was parliamentary party night for the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs and senators.
The U-turn on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment
was fresh in their minds as they met in the Convention Centre. It was the latest in a growing list of self-inflicted errors by the new Government, and backbenchers were getting tired of the negative.
A Fianna Fail TD who attended his party’s meeting said he had the feeling of “being a passenger on a plane that terrorists and taken over”. “They could crash the plane any minute,” he added.
After the relative fireworks of the previous week, the meeting was stale but there was criticism of the handling of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment issue.
Dun Laoghaire TD Cormac Devlin insisted the people on
‘It’s hard to begrudge our politicians a night out on the town’
the welfare support should be entitled to the same travel rights as anyone else. He said Fine Gael’s stance on stopping people from travelling was a “stark reminder” of the differences between the two parties.
“Cormac was making the point that Fine Gael was treating good working people as scroungers and we need to keep our identity as a party that realises that every now and again people need the safety net of social welfare,” said the TD who was there.
Meanwhile, in Fine Gael’s meeting, party members endured a lengthy debrief on the general rlection campaign which saw it drop to being the third largest party in the Dail.
Again errors were highlighted and party chairman Richard Bruton set out a plan to ensure Fine Gael doesn’t continue to lose touch with the electorate while in Government.
A group of Fine Gaelers headed across the road to the The Boat Restaurant & Bar, which serves food and drink on board the moored MV Cill
Airne. Among those present were the remaining members of the once-influential Fine Gael five-a-side team, Eoghan Murphy, Martin Heydon, Sean Kyne and Brendan Griffin.
They were joined by Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Minister of State for Public Health Frankie Feighan, and they all enjoyed pints and food in the restaurant in Dublin’s Docklands.
There was a split in Fianna Fail after its parliamentary meeting but only in terms of where they went to eat and drink. A group interestingly involving Finance Minister Michael McGrath and Jim O’Callaghan headed for the Lombard bar just off the south quays.
The group of around 15 TDs and senators enjoyed socially distant pints and food in the newly refurbished city centre pub, which is regularly frequented by political hacks.
There was some concern among the group that there were too many of them together toasting the end of the
Dail — even though they were adhering to social distancing rules.
Meanwhile, across town another group, mostly consisting of senators, headed for Fianna Fail’s natural home in Doheny & Nesbitt’s on Baggot Street. “There was no split in the party, there was equal amounts of bitching about Micheal in both pubs,” a source said.
The women of Fianna Fail decided to go for the more auspicious surroundings of Peploes restaurant on St Stephen’s Green where a 10z ribeye steak might set you back €36. But after the month they’ve all had it’s hard to begrudge them all a night out on the town.