Updated 11.10 pm
ENDA KENNY THIS evening took to Facebook to keep his followers “up to date” with his efforts at forming a government.
The caretaker Taoiseach said that he had met with members of the Social Democrats, Independent Alliance and other Independents and that other ministers will be having further meetings with those same groups.
“We in Fine Gael are also currently in the process of developing our own list of priorities based on our manifesto,” the Taoiseach said in a Facebook post that made no mention of Fianna Fáil.
Doing a deal
Speaking earlier today as Fine Gael launched their plans for Oireachtas reform, Eoghan Murphy TD says some deputies have been speaking “nonsense” in their criticism of his party.
Four Fine Gael TDs presented the proposals this afternoon but none of the party’s front bench were present.
Asked about the lack of movement on a potential deal between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, Murphy says some opponents are being disingenuous:
What I would say to other politicians who were in the Dáil yesterday as elected members, talking about Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil just picking up a phone and talking to each other. If that’s how they really feel, why didn’t they vote for Enda Kenny and give him a mandate for to actually do that. I think there’s a lot of nonsense being talking by these people.
Murphy also said that he thinks criticism of the Taoiseach for tendering his resignation in private to Michael D Higgins has been “completely overstated in the media”.
At the reform launch itself, the TDs outlined how the party wants ’randomly selected’ members of the public to review issues like climate change, Seanad Reform and the Eighth Amendment.
Fine Gael has previously suggested the issue of the Eighth Amendment could be put to a public forum similar to the Constitutional Convention.
The party has expanded on that with its proposal for a ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ consisting of members of the public who could carry out a “detailed review of a limited number of key issues”.
Their findings would be referred to the appropriate Oireachtas Committee and then to the government.
Marcella Corcoran Kennedy TD insisted that the Citizens Assembly would not be a ‘talking shop’ that would put issues like abortion on the long finger:
Because it would be established by the Oireachtas, you could set specific timelines so there’s plenty of scope there to make the Oireachtas involved to a greater degree with the result of the discussions of the Citizen’s Assembly.
On the issue of climate change, Corcoran Kennedy said that putting it to a Citizen’s Assembly would help make the issue “part of the dialogue of every citizen in this country”.
In full: Fine Gael’s Oireachtas Reform Proposal.
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