TÁINISTE AND MINISTER for Education Mary Coughlan has said that she regrets the decision of Jim McDaid to resign, RTÉ reports.

McDaid, TD for Donegal North East announced his decision to leave the Dáil today, saying that he believed a general election should take place.

Coughlan said that McDaid was wrong in his assertion that the government was not making the tough decisions needed to take Ireland out of its economic woes – as he had claimed in a letter to the Taoiseach.

McDaid said that, in order for the government to function properly, it needed to have a working majority in the Dáil of at least 20 seats. However, Coughlan said that it would not be reasonable to expect that any government would have a majority at the moment.

McDaid has called for a general election, saying the government had failed to make significant progress on reducing the deficit, however he added that “purely personal reasons” were behind his decision to resign.

He also added:

Our primary focus has been on the survival of Government instead of the health of the economy.

Coughlan said that the government is focused on the budgetary process.