The Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore has called on the Government to support the party’s motion to have a date set for the Dublin South by-election in the Dail next week.
Mr Gilmore is touring a number of constituencies in the Greater Dublin area today including Dublin South, where there is a by-election due
Mr Gilmore said that delays in holding by-elections following the death of Fianna Fail TD Seamus Brennan and, subsequently, the resignation of Fine Gael TD George Lee had left the constituency under-represented for a combined period of sixteen months.
Traditionally, the writ to move a byelection has been in he gift of the party which held the seat. Mr Lee, the former RTE economics correspondent, resigned in February this year, having being elected in June 2009 in a by-election occasioned by the death of Mr Brennan in July 2008.
The only declared candidate for Dublin South is the Labour senator Alex White, who was runner up to Mr Lee in last year’s by-election. Neither Fianna Fail nor Fine Gael has selected candidates as yet.
Mr Gilmore said yesterday that it was not acceptable in a democratic society to have three Dáil seats vacant with no indication that they would be filled.
The other two vacancies are in Donegal South West (since the election of Pat the Cope Gallagher to the European Parliament in June 2008) and Waterford, where Martin Cullen resigned earlier this year for health reasons.
The Government has given tentative indications but no confirmation that all three by-elections will be held together, towards the end of 2010.
Mr Gilmore said it was now essential that Labour and the other opposition
parties should focus their attention back on the record.