Politics

Varadkar out, Harris in: what will happen today?

By early Tuesday evening, the Fine Gael leader will have likely become taoiseach and formed his new cabinet

Leo Varadkar formally tendered his resignation as Taoiseach at Áras an Uachtaráin.

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Pat Leahy
Mon Apr 8 2024 - 18:33

Leo Varadkar resigned as Taoiseach on Monday evening, travelling to Áras an Uachtaráin and formally placing his resignation in the hands of President Michael D Higgins.

He does not, however, cease to be Taoiseach just yet. He will remain in office until his successor, having secured a majority of votes in the Dáil in support of his nomination, is appointed by the President. There is never not a Taoiseach. Today in the Áras, probably at lunchtime, the office will pass in an instant from Varadkar to Simon Harris. But not until then.

It is the same with the Ministers that make up the Cabinet. When Varadkar resigned on Monday evening, all Ministers were deemed to have also resigned. Like the Taoiseach, however, they will also carry on their duties until their successors have been appointed by the President.

Tuesday’s business in the Dáil begins earlier than usual, at 10.30am. All normal business is suspended – the election of a new taoiseach takes precedence over everything. Harris will be proposed and seconded by members of his own party. That will be followed by speeches from the leaders of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party supporting Harris’s nomination for taoiseach and then by speeches from the leaders of all the Opposition parties and Independent groups (there are three of them).

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Simon Harris arrives at a meeting of the North South Ministerial Council in Armagh on Monday, a day before he is due to become taoiseach. Photograph: Oliver McVeigh/PA Wire

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The Opposition parties will strenuously oppose Harris’s nomination and demand an immediate general election. Some individual Independents have indicated they will support Harris, and are likely to put that on the record. Eventually, the vote will be taken; if Harris does not win comfortably, it will mean that something has gone badly wrong; if the Dáil cannot elect a new taoiseach at all, a general election will ensue.

One thing to watch will be the size of the vote for Harris. Although the Government’s majority may appear wafer-thin on a headcount of currently whipped Green/Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil TDs, in fact it has a comfortable working majority owing to the support or abstention of several Independent TDs. On motions of confidence, it has typically enjoyed a majority of 19-20 votes. The last such motion, on confidence in Minister for Justice Helen McEntee last December in the wake of the Dublin riots, saw the Government win easily with a majority of 20 votes. When Varadkar was elected Taoiseach for the second time, after Micheál Martin stepped down in December 2022, his margin was 25 votes. Harris will want something in that ballpark.

Once the Dáil has voted for him, proceedings will be adjourned, probably at about 1pm, and Harris will go to Áras an Uachtaráin where the President will present him with his seal of office and sign the warrant of appointment. It is at that moment that Varadkar ceases to be Taoiseach, and the office, and all its powers, passes to Harris.

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The new taoiseach will return to Government Buildings, where he will begin the difficult process of notifying his cabinet: in or out. Typically, Ministers are shuffled in and out of the new Taoiseach’s office, having been summoned by his staff to come across from Leinster House to Government Buildings via the so-called “bridge of sighs” – an elevated glass walkway between the two buildings. Most taoisigh say they hate this part of the job. There’s never enough cabinet positions to go around.

By 5pm, the hiring and firing should have been done and the Dáil will reconvene. The new taoiseach will lead his cabinet in a procession into the Dáil chamber and another debate – very similar, in truth, to the morning’s one – on the nomination of the new government will take place.

Once approved by the Dáil in a vote, the proposed new cabinet will travel to Áras an Uachtaráin where they will be presented with their seals of office by the President, pose for a team photograph and hold their first meeting there. For the first time, Harris will chair the Cabinet. From then on, he’s in charge. And the buck stops with him.

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