Government set to survive no confidence vote as Marc MacSharry describes SF move as ‘gimmick’

The Government should survive Tuesday’s Dáil vote of no confidence with at least one of its former TDs - Marc MacSharry - set to oppose the Sinn Féin motion.

The Coalition lost its Dáil majority last week when Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh voted against legislation to bring in a grant scheme to help householders whose homes are damaged by Mica due to concerns he had about the plans.

He resigned the Fine Gael whip and said he will be looking at every Dáil vote in the future as “an individual”.

Sinn Féin tabled its motion of no confidence in the Government - to be voted on in the Dáil on Tuesday - after Mr McHugh’s departure cut the Government’s numbers to 79, one short of what is needed for a majority.

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Mary Lou McDonald said on Sunday that the Government’s survival should not be taken for granted and rebel Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan has said she has still not decided if she will back it in Tuesday’s vote.

However, the Government now too looks set to come through the challenge as Sligo Leitrim TD Mr MacSharry confirmed he will vote against the Sinn Féin motion.

The Government may also be able to rely on support of other former Coalition TDs as well as Independent TDs like Michael Lowry, Noel Grealish and Seán Canney that regularly support it in Dáil votes.

Mr MacSharry quit the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party last September after criticsing how it was being run ahead of a confidence motion tabled by Sinn Féin against Fine Gael Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney.

Mr MacSharry said he has “many issues” with what he argued is the “the autopilot, civil servant-led administration” he blamed on Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

But he also said: “The country will not benefit from a general election at this time.”

He said no confidence motions are “a standard set piece end of term gimmick” and the focus needs to be on “on making Government take responsibility for what they are elected to do and that’s treat our housing, health and cost of living crises as the emergencies they are”.

Speaking to RTÉ Radio Ms Hourigan said she is “as yet undecided” on how she will vote on the no confidence motion.

In May, Ms Hourigan and Patrick Costello, another Green TD, were suspended from their party whip for six months after they voted in favour of a Sinn Féin motion on the National Maternity Hospital.

The Dublin Central TD said that she has not been in contact with Government whips since her vote against the Coalition and suggested she would appreciate some communication from them “around what is expected when you are suspended”.

Earlier, Green Party Minister of State Pippa Hackett told The Week in Politics that Sinn Féin’s motion is “not surprising” in the last week of the Dáil before the summer recess but the Coalition has a “healthy working majority”.

As well as acknowledging that the Government may get support from some Independents, she suggested that Mr McHugh, Ms Hourigan and Mr Costello could vote with the Coalition.

She said that Mr McHugh “as a previous cabinet minister will know the importance of having a stable government particularly at a difficult time” and Ms Hourigan and Mr Costello have “indicated they want to rejoin the Green parliamentary party”.

She denied their ability to do this is linked to their support or otherwise of the Coalition on Tuesday but said: “I would expect them to be supportive of us in government”.

Ms Hackett said the three Government parties have “worked very well together” and added: “there’s a lot more to do over the next two and a half years.”

Elsewhere, Ms McDonald told Newstalk Radio’s On the Record show that the Government’s handling of the Mica issue demonstrated why “it is now time to call time on them and for them to go”.

The Sinn Féin said the Government had “lost its Dáil majority as they rammed through a defective scheme to deal with defective blocks”.

Ms McDonald said there have been “failures” in housing and health but the response to mica “crystallised certainly just how bad things have gotten”.

Ms McDonald said that she doesn’t accept that it is inevitable that the motion of no confidence in Government isn’t going to pass.

“I think if it was a such a foregone conclusion (that it isn’t going to pass) that it is unusual to see reports in the media that the Taoiseach is making rounds of phone calls to people to urge them, to convince them to back this Government again.

“I am making the point that nothing in political life is ever a foregone conclusion. It would be a mistake to imagine that it is.

“Every individual TD will now have to assess at what is the best thing to do - either to back the government for more of the same or to stand with us.

“So far, the majority of the opposition have indicated that they will in fact support the no confidence motion.”

Separately, Ms McDonald dismissed the suggestion that the party’s no confidence motion was a political stunt. “Democracy isn’t stunts, parliamentary procedures are not stunts,” she said.

Independent Wexford TD Verona Murphy said she plans to vote for the Sinn Féin motion of no confidence in the Government.

She told The Week in Politics that the Government is “simply not in charge” with “Secretary Generals running rings” around Ministers in the Coalition.

Deputy Murphy said carers in rural Ireland are unable to afford to go to work due to the price of diesel and petrol, with their only option being to “join the social welfare queue”.

Earlier, when asked about Boris Johnson’s resignation, Ms McDonald said the Conservatives under a new leader need to “get real” about the Northern Ireland protocol it agreed to as part of its Brexit agreement with the EU and “actually demonstrate respect for people in the North of Ireland and for the island as a whole.”

“Under Boris Johnson’s government, we have endured what has been a really hostile undermining of the Good Friday Agreement,” she told the BBC’s Sunday Politics.

“For ordinary people all of this grandstanding and these power plays among Tory toffs inside and outside Number 10 are not worth a hill of beans. People need good government and a response to the realities of their lives now,” she said.

“The mechanism of breaking international law, acting in bad faith, behaving as a rogue state, quite frankly, is not the answer. It is a recipe for further hardship for working families and business in the North and across the island as a whole.”

Ms McDonald said the British government “needs to be clear that Ireland will not be the collateral damage in their antics.”