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GOVERNMENT FORMATION DISCUSSIONS should pick up pace from next week as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have finally conceded that they have to get into a room together for talks.
Since the general election result, government formation plans have been moving at a glacial pace.
There has been talk about talks, with phrases like “preliminary talks” and “exploratory talks” being bandied around in the last couple of days.
Sinn Féin has been leading the march, sitting down with many of the smaller parties and Independents in the last week to sound out the possibilities of a left-led government.
The party also held meetings with the top civil servants on how to turn its election promises into programme for government realities.
There are 87 TDs who are not members of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil and of these, 37 are Sinn Féin members.
This means that Sinn Féin has the enormous task of convincing 50 other TDs to sign up to government formation with them – or at least, agree to abstain in major votes in a confidence and supply arrangement.
With Labour ruled out after stating that its six members did not get a mandate to enter government, it means if every single other TD, aside from FF and FG members, signed up with Sinn Féin, the party would exceed the magic number with 81 seats.
Despite what many would say is an impossible task, talks continue into their third week.
So who is talking to who?
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have both ruled out talking to Sinn Féin. There has been no movement there.
However, Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin did speak by phone after both leaders lost the vote to become the next Taoiseach on Thursday.
They agreed to meet early next week – though the location of where the chat will take place has not been disclosed.
A lot will hinge on this meeting.
Varadkar said in Brussels that his party is preparing to go into opposition, but that next week’s meeting will allow both leaders to discuss “ways forward”.
The leaders have been tight-lipped about what will be on the agenda, but the potential of a so-called grand coalition involving their parties and the possibility of a rotating taoiseach will most likely be up for discussion.
(Remember, these were two issues also discussed back in 2016 when it took 70 days to form a government).
After the meeting, Varadkar said he will brief the Fine Gael parliamentary party, probably on Wednesday or Thursday. He has yet to appoint his party’s negotiating team, though senior party figures are likely to feature on the team. Names in the mix include Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe and Helen McEntee.
The party’s last parliamentary meeting lasted over five hours, so its next meeting might also be a long one, as TDs set out why Fine Gael should or should not enter into a coalition with Fianna Fáil or why another confidence and supply might be a bad move for both parties.
While the spotlight will be on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael from early next week, Sinn Féin will continue its discussions with the Green Party, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, Solidarity-People Before Profit, Independents4Change and a range of other Independents.
Speaking yesterday, Mary Lou McDonald said: “Despite the rejection of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s record over the past four years, they are now looking for a carve-up of political power that is about keeping them in office and blocking change.”
“Any such proposal flies in the face of what people voted for and does not represent change,” she said.
Next week’s discussions for Sinn Féin will focus on issues such as building homes, cutting rents and freezing them, guaranteeing the pension age at sixty-five, health and the trolley crisis, climate change and Irish Unity.
The Social Democrats are due to meet both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael next week.
A meeting between the Green Party and the Social Democrats is due to last a day and a half, with the location mooted to be in Dublin Castle.
The Green Party – who could perhaps be the kingmakers in these negotiations – also has a busy week ahead. Plans are afoot for the party to meet with Sinn Féin on Monday or Tuesday.
Eamon Ryan will meet with Fianna Fáil on Wednesday or Thursday. A meeting with Fine Gael will follow.
In terms of Independent TDs, many are going solo with their talks with parties.
While a regional technical parliamentary grouping was established, consisting of Cathal Berry, Sean Canney, Peter Fitzpatrick, Noel Grealish, Michael Lowry, Verona Murphy, Denis Naughten, Matt Shanahan and Peadar Toibin, its members state that it was only set up to establish speaking rights in the Dáil.
It is not a grouping entering into talks together, said one TD, who said there were some members in the group that he could not sit around a table with for talks, They added that they had been engaging with a number of parties in recent days.
How do they see it ending up? “Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Greens, the Social Democrats and a couple of Independents to give it a whiff of a national parliament,” they said.
Just two weeks out from the election, and it’s still all to play for.
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Oh Michael, you and you’re party are in for some rude awakening very shortly.
@Jack Cass: maybe you are Jackie boy, maybe you are..
Mícheál Martin wouldn’t know how to put pressure on anyone or anything apart from the working/middle classes.
@Jack Cass: Honestly, could you imagine him as Taoiseach!
@Jazz Buckler: Time will telll, Jazz, time will tell.
@Jack Cass: you really think so? I think he’ll be Taoiseach, supported by FG.
Quid pro quo.
@ObsidianShine: you’d better start, because the dopes that are the Irish electorate will do more than imagine it!
@ObsidianShine: I have to laugh at you guys Micheal Martin had been pulling the strings ok FG a long time now. He is after all the ‘Real’ Taoiseach in all but name. FG cannot do anything without his backing.
@Jack Cass: FF the party that drove us off a cliff and left us with a 200billion legacy debt… FF are a laughing stock of sleeveens.. that prop up FG another sellout sleeveen party.Vote for real change Vote for Direct Democracy..
@Jack Cass: Never a truer word spoken. This climate change debacle will be resolved very shortly.
For info.. buying locally produced goods greatly reduces CO2 emissions. Also for info Michael Martin has obviously taken heed of the shift towards the greens shown by the electorate in the latest European elections and is now trying to ride that wave. We’re on to ya big Mickey. We know what you’re at so don’t be blaggarding us
@John O’Leary: there is no wave
@Henri Poincaré: too true. made up by rte and the pollsters
How about a new political party full of experienced business men or academics like they have in Germany
@Caoimhín O Neill: a government is not a business and can’t be run like one and most academics have never had a proper job in their life either in government or business.
How about changing employment practices by having more technically/policy qualified civil servants and making best use of the people they already employ? Some senior civil servants are only in their role because they have been around for a long time and many junior civil servants are put into and moved around jobs that have no bearing on their qualifications or motivation etc
@DaveevaD: My sister recently moved into a public sector job.. She said it’s the biggest joke, no accountability, no pressure to get work done, short days etc etc.. I’d be certainly on for getting a few successful business people to run some departments.
@Caoimhín O Neill: Or even business women & academics. That could work too.
@wormtubes: definitely but not properly managing and valuing people also demotivates them so I would blame the system first before the staff.
I would separate good management of people/human resources, innovation and skills development from seeing government as a business
Businesses can pick and choose the markets they serve, government can’t and governments need to serve ALL citizens regardless of circumstance
Businesses have a legal obligation to increase shareholder value, governments have to be prudent with taxpayers money (i know, right??)
Business don’t have to deal with competing political interests and manage the regulatory context
Also there is an assumption that all businesses are well run organisations, they absolutely are not and far from it in many cases.
@Caoimhín O Neill: agreed, put Ryan air boss at the top of that list, probably do the right thing rather then the popular one
@DaveevaD: since when did academics ever have experience
This is just Fianna Fáil trying to cosy-up to the Green Party with the hopes of forming another FF-Green coalition after the next general election. However, we must not forget the national disaster that was the previous FF-Green coalition: Two high-spending parties with their hand on the fiscal tiller was fatal for Ireland’s economy the last time around. It would be so again.
We must not forget the Green Party’s antipathy toward industry, energy and rural life, either.
Looking for the popular vote sell out of a party hopefully soon wiped out
@Brian Byrne: that would be the greens
You’re corrupt party ruined this country and caused many, many suicides.
“Martin wants the government to set a target for when it will be fossil-free.”
You mean there is hope we might set a date to rid ourselves of all these incompetent egotistical dinosaurs descended from intergenerational political families who have done this nation and it’s people such disservice, why maybe there is hope after all.
All that matters to him is to become taoiseach, hopefully people see this and do the right thing,wipe FF out of Irish politics.
@@mdmak33: All the parties are the same, different names but the same underneath.
Politicians here are a joke and if they aren’t landlords then they are exschool teachers. What would you say if I told you there is a TD who was a school teacher years years ago that battered a child who had hearing aids in and who one day turned them off in his class as he got fed up with this teacher talking bull and that school teacher battered him around the class back then for that and that this victim isn’t long dead now himself and then compared this action to what that TD has said in the past in the Dail. Wouldn’t hypocracy come to mind? That is what I think off when I see any politician speak…
@@mdmak33: And no, its not any party leader.
@@mdmak33: and take fine geal with them their the one party wearing two hats now..
All this from a man who stated when a Minister in the F.F. government that facilitated the gangsterism of the banks and developers he was not told or knew nothing about the financial collapse that was coming down the tracks
A Fool or a Liar… both I think.
@Donal Desmond: and that is why his political career survived and the others lost theirs in shame. Micheal was kept out of the ‘loop of gangsters’ because he was never in the loop. He will do more to Unite the Country than any previous Taoiseach will that is for sure. It’s. Pity his not in office now to handle the Brexit.
Just reading through the comments here and it certainly appears that FF and FG are not in flavour here, however come the next election one if not both will again be in power, because a huge number of voters will want them because they get very well looked after. I dare say that those who prefer a different Government would be private sector workers.
You poor delusional man, at what stage are you going to grasp that you can’t keep trying to say the right things and then do the complete opposite when you get the chance to run the country, let the younger generation have a go as your generation of politicians have tried and failed miserably…
A few of the younger politicians did the exact opposite to what they said they’d do when they got into government.
Wow…Is He For Real …..TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
@Marianne: Fianna Fail are proposing a bad habits bill, dole will be given by way of a card & you won’t be able to spend in off licence or bookies, same as Australia. They’re declaring war on the dole lifer’s
#w@nker
Scam save the planet taxes encouraged by 2ic of FFG…
SHOCKER ….
If ever 2 words summed up what FFG are not it’s “confidence and supply”.
You poor man, at what stage are you going to grasp that you can’t keep trying to say the right things and then do the complete opposite when you get the chance to run the country, let the younger generation have a go as your generation of politicians have tried and failed miserably…
Blind wanting to lead the blind.
Opposite cheeks of the same me fein arse…
Go away mr Martin. U had your chance to form a government but u bottled it. Is there nobody in Fianna fail capable of forming an opposition to this shower of incompetents we have.
At what stage are you going to grasp that you can’t keep trying to say the right things and then do the complete opposite when you get the chance to run the country, let the younger generation have a go as your generation of politicians have tried and failed miserably…
He’ll do whatever Leo and the lads tell him to do..spineless!!
Taxes, taxes and more taxes. Wake up, Ireland, even Europe is never going to save the planet unless China, India, America ect make massive changes so what’s the point. I couldn’t be bothered trying to figure out my green bin to a brown one.
Way things are going – we CAN hardly tell the difference between the seasons – warmer air holds more water – so more rain – and warmer water fuels more storms – and this is just the beginning – Arctic Earth cooler is shutting down – climate action – we are running out of time – fair play to Mr Martin – he is doing the right thing – imagine if Ireland had invested in wind and solar years years ago- our reliance on Middle Eastern OIL would now be very low and not only that but we could export the excess energy to UK.
@GO GREEN: and what’s your solution? Tax the workers or tax big business? How about this for a start, take in the complete 12.5% in corporate tax from every business, forget the write off the banks get every years on the debt the tax payer paid . Tax the vulture funds. Ring fence all this extra money and Bobs your uncle. We would be the greenest country in the world. But no, can’t upset the investors and the banks and let the little man pay. Note I did not disagree that something needs to be done but sick and tired of successive governments picking the low hanging fruit, and I think that’s what most people think. Not the policy of FF, FG , the greens and all other parties. And the big words here are “ ring fence “.
@John fitzpatrick: I have always said that banks and the elite corporations should pay the world over- they have billions and billions at their disposal.
@John fitzpatrick: Here is how to do it without a burden on ordinary people – in fact the opposite jobs and plenty of them https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/17/green-new-deal-climate-disaster
@GO GREEN: an awful lot of ifs and buts there and as for AOC, she’s no better than our school teachers and unqualified civil servants. Too many people with ideas and not enough action.
We have a very simple solution in Ireland if we had the courage to do it. Claim the tax we are due. In the US, solutions are coming before they have an idea how to finance.
@GO GREEN: Would you stop, AOC claimed only yesterday that Miami would be wiped off the map in 2 years, say What? 2 years ago she was a waitress and apparently not a good one either. I’d say in about 2 years she’ll be back at work where she belongs and Miami will still be there. She is a ridiculous person.
Sinn Fein is asleep!
@Moorooka Mick: They can stay asleep with Mary-Lou in charge.
“puts pressure” lol
Out of all the parties, Fianna Fail will never ever get a vote from me. Agrarian populist charlatans.
Time will tell, lol
In other words tax the f**k out of the sheeple, they’ll be stupid enough to vote us back in just like the last time. At the rate things are going we’l hit a recession again before we know it if Germany has another contraction in the next quarter. Then the Green Party will once again lose out to the anti austerity vote. Anyway, i’d better get back to work and pay my taxes for Mehole’s recent 5k wage increase along with the rest of his cronies.
Mícheál bring in a no bád habits bill, like Australia a social welfare card which could not be used in the bookies or to purchase alcohol or cigarettes. And deduct from it also bin charges to avoid flytipping. Then a ‘rubbish card’ for every household to see how they dispose of their waste which Inspectors could be created to check like the TV license 1′s. You sure would (not) be flavour of the montb with friends in vintners, bookies and fly tippers by doing the right thing. Votes would be costly.
Nice to know Mr Martin is worth his 140 k salary a year…..NOT.
Whose this f#ck€r think he’s kidding! That was some article…… from a corrupt moron!
Answer him better to look after the sick and the homeless instead of cosying up to the greens
Yea grow more trees to produce planks like him.
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