Taoiseach dismisses Green TD’s suggestion of a renegotiation of terms of government

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has dismissed a suggestion from Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin there would be an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of government when the office of taoiseach changes hands.

Ms Martin said on Friday that if the Greens entered government they would keep the commitments of the programme under constant review.

“When the taoiseach changes, one way of doing that would be to renegotiate the programme for government and have a thorough assessment of what we have agreed,” she said on RTÉ’s Today with Sarah McInerney show.

As leader of Fine Gael, Mr Varadkar would be due, under proposed arrangements, to take over the role of taoiseach from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin in December 2022.

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Last night he flatly contradicted Ms Martin’s suggestion: “There is something Catherine Martin said that I totally agree with. She said that parties entering into this coalition should do so with their eyes open and I would add to that that we should do so in good faith.

“The programme for government has been negotiated by the three parties. It is for the full duration of the Dáil, there is no provision in it for a renegotiation clause.

“Such clauses have existed in previous programmes for governments, and indeed existed in the confidence-and-supply agreement we had with Fianna Fáil. There is no such clause or provision in this programme for government,” he said.

Election of taoiseach

Earlier, Green leader Eamon Ryan said he expected a taoiseach to be elected by the Dáil on Saturday week, even if one of the three parties decided to reject the proposed coalition.

“A taoiseach will still be elected because we do have a question of legislation the following Tuesday [June 30th] that needs to be passed, with regard to the Special Criminal Court.

“I imagine a taoiseach will be elected but it will be a very unstable situation,” he said.

Mr Ryan, speaking on the Irish Times Inside Politics podcast, said he wanted to avoid a situation like that in the early 1980s. “Our political system could not make decisions. We had three elections in 18 months,” he said.

“I will be honest, my first thoughts in terms of this programme for government is . . . to get jobs back and to get people working. They should be the first priority.”

In another challenge to a Green Party assertion, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said that Dún Laoghaire TD Ossian Smyth was wrong when he said the M20 motorway to Cork would not go ahead during the lifetime of the next government. Mr Donohoe said the project would go ahead.