“You are making an absolute holy show of yourselves.”
That sentence, uttered in the Dáil on Tuesday by Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy – with her eyes cast to the heavens – is already destined for posterity: a nailed-on inclusion in a future episode of RTÉ’s look-back TV programme Reeling in the Years.
At a time of huge global tension, and the threat of US tariffs hanging over Ireland, the Dáil has been in sclerosis for two months because of a circular row over speaking rights. It has put all other business in abeyance: the formation of committees, new legislation, probing of issues such as housing and excessive State spending.
On Tuesday, the Dáil reheated the same unsavoury tunnel brawl that had led to the abandonment of Micheál Martin’s election as Taoiseach on January 22nd.
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The root cause was the attempted stroke by Tipperary North Independent TD Michael Lowry to form an Opposition technical group that included three Independent TDs who supported the Government.
Murphy had been in Lowry’s group before her appointment. Opposition suspicions about her objectivity were dissipated somewhat a few days later in January when she ruled the Lowry group was not in Opposition. There the matter might have lain.
However, within a week, Government chief whip Mary Butler proposed a brand new group: “Other TDs”, which would be made up of the Lowry Independent groups and backbench TDs from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who had long complained of having no proper speaking outlet.
For the Opposition this was a deliberate shifting of the goalposts to accommodate Lowry, a quid pro quo for supporting the Government “in good times and in bad”, as he said.
The touch paper for Tuesday’s explosive encounter was a Government motion to change standing orders to accommodate this new group and give it two eight-minute slots a week to ask questions of Government leaders.
It was to be taken without debate – in other words, railroaded through.
The Opposition leaders met on Monday and decided on a strategy of robust engagement and disruption. Sinn Féin tabled an amendment.
On Tuesday, angry exchanges began almost as soon as the Dáil convened at 2pm with Taoiseach Micheál Martin being subjected to a constant barracking during Leaders’ Questions.
The Ceann Comhairle took a different approach from the January debacle. She did not move to adjourn the House or suspend any member from the House, despite continuous interruptions, mainly from the Sinn Féin benches. Her strategy seemed to be to get done what needed to be done. This turned the Opposition anger on her.
Shortly after 3pm, when the vote was due to be taken, the cacophony in the chamber became deafening.
The procedure the Ceann Comhairle follows is to put the motion to the House. If she deems it passed, she says it is carried. At that stage, any member of the House can challenge that by saying ‘vótáil’. The Dáil then votes.
This moment led to a motion of no confidence in the Ceann Comhairle. Amid the roaring, where it was nigh impossible to hear anything clearly, Murphy proceeded to deem the motion carried, and Sinn Féin’s amendment defeated, as if nobody had said ‘vótáil’. A report by clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan produced the next day supported this version.
However, the Opposition parties studied the video footage and claimed that amid all the roaring what was clearly audible was somebody in the chamber uttering “votáil” at the critical moment. In other words, a vote should have been taken. They claimed this was a misstep by Murphy.
As TDs emerged from the chamber, it was clear the Ceann Comhairle was in the crosshairs of the Opposition. Within minutes she was accused of bias and of carrying out the Government’s bidding. Murphy would later absolutely deny there was any such arrangement. She had been scrupulously impartial, she maintained.
Within hours, five Opposition leaders had signed a motion stating the “Ceann Comhairle no longer retains the confidence of all members of Dáil Éireann”.
The other significant occurrence was Lowry’s two-finger gesture at People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, which went viral on social-media channels and dominated the next day’s newspaper front pages. The Opposition portrayed it as a symbol of the Government’s indifference to equanimity in the Dáil.
The notion that the Ceann Comhairle must enjoy the confidence of all sides of the House is a relatively new concept. It only emerged in 2016, when there was radical Dáil reform, which shifted the balance of power away from the Government to the Oireachtas itself. That became about because of the fragmentation of traditional power, with no party, or combination of parties, close to a majority.
There was a secret ballot for the job of Ceann Comhairle for the first time. The winner, Fianna Fáil’s Seán Ó Fearghaíl, was generally respected by all during his nine years in the job. But he was an outlier. Those who preceded him this century were strongly associated with the government of the day.
[ Verona Murphy’s survival as Ceann Comhairle hinges on two questionsOpens in new window ]
In 2004, the Labour Party threatened to take a no-confidence motion against ceann comhairle Rory O’Hanlon of Fianna Fáil after its leader Pat Rabbitte accused him of being “the most partisan chair this House has ever had”.
In similar bad-tempered exchanges, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin threatened to take a confidence motion against Fine Gael’s Seán Barrett in 2014 and again in 2015 after they claimed he was shielding the government and its ministers.
Fianna Fáil’s John O’Donoghue also looked like facing a no-confidence motion in late 2009 but resigned before it was tabled. Journalist Ken Foxe, through an Freedom of Information Act request, had disclosed O’Donoghue had run up enormous bills for foreign travel, including expensive hotels and meals and limousine hire. The difference between O’Donoghue and others was the extravagance of the spending was such that his own colleagues in Fianna Fáil could no longer support his tenure.
So where does it leave Murphy, and the deteriorating relationship between Government and Opposition? Nobody is in any doubt that the Ceann Comhairle will survive the vote. The question is will it impact her standing and her authority?
Undoubtedly, says Sinn Féin whip Pádraig Mac Lochlainn.
“It’s the first time a Ceann Comhairle has lost the confidence of an overwhelming majority of the Opposition. It’s a very serious situation,” he said.
“If she stays she will need to reflect on how she will rebuild relationships and restore confidence.”
At this moment, the Opposition is in no hurry to co-operate with the Coalition but will not seek to disrupt the Dáil. Sinn Féin may pursue its argument that Murphy did not follow procedure. However, a Fianna Fáil backbench TD commented that that was hardly a firing offence. A senior figure from another Opposition party wondered if there was any point in a row over an esoteric parliamentary process that will be lost on most people.
“I think the public has tired of it. Only for Michael Lowry’s two fingers we might have got some stick this week for prolonging the row,” said this TD.
He added, however, that Murphy would now be viewed by the Opposition as Government-facing.
Government sources say the confidence vote may be ill-tempered but the vote will be carried by a margin of 20 or more.
It’s not completely over. The Dáil’s business committee met on Thursday to set the agenda for next week. Ironically, the first smaller group to get to ask questions of the Taoiseach next week will be Michael Lowry’s group. Expect fireworks.
