Updated at 7.05pm
SINN FÉIN DEPUTY leader Mary Lou McDonald was told to leave the Dáil this evening after getting into an argument with Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett.
The row developed as McDonald outlined her party’s response to the Budget measures, announced by Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin earlier this afternoon.
Barrett intervened, noting that he had been “slow to do so”, as the TD was addressing her comments to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and not to the chair, as protocol dictated.
McDonald, not content to put up with being interrupted in such a manner, looked incredulous at Barrett’s move.
“Thank you for that very helpful intervention Ceann Comhairle,” she said, before describing it as “deliberately destructive”.
Asked repeatedly to withdraw the remark by Barrett, she refused to do so.
He told her she’d have to leave the chamber unless she took back the comment, adding, as McDonald continued to reply ”you do not address the house from outside the chamber”.
Speaking on RTÉ radio in the wake of the incident, McDonald said other speakers had also been addressing their comments to the Taoiseach, but she was the only member that had been interrupted.
She later confirmed to TheJournal.ie that she wasn’t being allowed back into the Dáil chamber for the rest of the night, meaning she won’t be able to vote.
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