Il Dáil si è aggiornato a domani senza nominare un nuovo taoiseach in una giornata di caos

Fools and jokers, i don’t see this government lasting.

Well that was a completely avoidable mess.

God forbid they work late

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

What a joke.

Just give the gov all the speaking time. Problem solved.

Good, what the Government are attempting to do is making a mockery of parliamentary democracy, and all in the service of self-interested ‘independents’ as well as themselves. It speaks to the rather staggering level of hubris in FFFG.

Feels like this could be the start of getting a collectively more united opposition

Verona Murphy should never have been nominated as Ceann Comhairle. The position should never have been part of the wheeling and dealing with Independents during Government formation talks. It is disrespectful towards the Dáil itself. I suspect deep down that is where a lot of the anger from the opposition is coming from. The Technical Group farce feeds into it given her involvement in Government formation talks. I’m surprised that Micheál Martin allowed it to come to pass given his experience and understanding of the nuances of how the Dáil functions. It speaks of a bit of desperation on his behalf.

She’s also clearly out of her depth following today’s shambles. She was first elected in 2020 and clearly still lacks an understanding of procedures and running orders for the Dáil. Take for example her decision to allow Albert Dolan TD to fire ahead and try and nominate Micheál Martin for Taoiseach despite the opposition still up in arms. She hadn’t even put the Dáil Business to a vote beforehand as required. She said it herself – Michael Lowry is the one that put the idea of running for the position in her heard just a few weeks ago. It’s not a role she even thought herself capable of.

It’s a farce. I suspect she will be lucky to be in the role in a week. An opposition motion of no confidence may be on the cards and if it comes to that it’s curtains for her. Too divisive. She seems to have a nasty streak too, not exactly a great trait to have for someone who needs the confidence of the entire house. She reminds me of John O’Donoghue who was pretty sneery towards the opposition. I think the days of that sort of behaviour from a Ceann Comhairle are behind us with the “new politics” Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been harping on about in recent years. You can’t just expect to revert to the traditions of a couple of decades ago because they now have the numbers and want to shut down the opposition. That’s exactly what they have gone and done by reverting to the idea that it is the Government’s right to gift someone the Ceann Comhairle position.

All in all it has been a farce of a day and it’s entirely of the Government’s own making, tbh. The whole fiasco was avoidable by allowing the Ceann Comhairle position to be decided solely by secret ballot and kept away from party politics and Government formation talks.

BBC talking bollocks then – it’s been reporting that Martin had been reelected Taoiseach with Harris as tánaiste.