The changeover of taoiseach, which was due to take place on December 15th, looks set to be delayed by a number of days to allow Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin attend a crunch EU summit.
As part of a deal brokered between the three Coalition leaders during the 2020 Government formation talks, the office of Taoiseach was due to switch from Mr Martin to Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar on December 15th.
At that point, Mr Martin would have offered his resignation to President Michael D Higgins, after which point a Dáil vote would be held to elect Mr Varadkar as taoiseach. Mr Varadkar would then name his Cabinet before they too received their seals of office.
The process now looks set to be delayed by a number of days as an EU council meeting is scheduled for December 15th, and the leader of the country must attend.
While one Coalition source said that matters pertaining to the rotation won’t be discussed by the leaders until later in November, another senior source said delaying the handover by a few days looks to be the easiest solution.
This may mean that the Dáil will have to sit later in December although these discussions have yet to take place.
