FIANNA FÁIL’S SEAT majority “has to be reflected” in the next government, party leader Micheál Martin told reporters outside Leinster House today.
Asked today whether he will be the first Taoiseach in any rotating arrangement with Fine Gael, Martin said the 48-seat bloc of Fianna Fáil needs to be recognised in the “configuration and composition” of the next coalition.
Speaking after a parliamentary party meeting, Martin also confirmed that Fianna Fáil has approached independent TDs who, he said, “clearly have a potential role” in the government formation negotiations.
He added, however, that it was too early to detail his preferred third partner.
It is now widely accepted that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will again form a government with a third party and both party leaders confirmed as much today.
As Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are yet to find their third partner, the finer details (such as ministerial appointments) are yet to be hammered out. It is expected that the party leaders will share Oifig an Taoisigh again, in a rotating taoiseach arrangement.
Speaking to The Journal before the general election, Martin said he wants to lead the next government. Asked today if he thinks that will be the case, he said: “I’m entering into the negotiations with respect to everybody else.
“I think Fianna Fáil has secured a very significant number of seats on this occasion. That has to be reflected ultimately in the configuration and the composition of policy and structure of government.”
Fine Gael, it is understood, are advocating for ‘parity of esteem’ – meaning both groups have equal say over major decisions, appointments and power despite Harris’ party having ten fewer seats than Martin’s.
Martin, who appointed outgoing finance minister Jack Chambers as his party’s negotiator, said he has made “initial contact” with Harris and will continue discussions further with him in Edinburgh, Scotland where they will attend an British-Irish Council meeting on Friday.
Centre-left parties, such as Labour and the Social Democrats, were tipped as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s preferred third coalition partner ahead of the general election.
But Labour has since said it will not go into government without another party of “shared values” and some in the Social Democrats are understood cautious following the Green Party’s recent wipeout in the general election.
Martin said his recent meeting with some independent TDs was to “sum down” their perspective on engaging both parties in the context of government formation.
Speaking later this afternoon ahead of Fine Gael’s first parliamentary party meeting, Simon Harris said his party was “open to engaging” with independent TDs about forming a coalition alongside Fianna Fáil.
He said, however, that he would not “negotiate in front of microphones in the rain”, referring to the wet conditions during the press conference on the side of the road. Harris added that he is approaching the talks with a “open mind”.
“We need to approach this from a point of mutual respect, from a point of grounding those discussions, in policy, in deliverables, in reflecting what we heard from people across the country and what we set out in our manifestos,” he told reporters.
Separately, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald today confirmed that she would be meeting with the two centre-left groups to discuss the possibility of them remaining out of government to form a “cohesive opposition”.
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