McDaid resigns: Another Donegal byelection adds pressure to Government..

Now here, on the face of it, is a bizarre move from Jim McDaid. Why now? And why resign the seat?  However it does makes things less complicated for Niall Blaney, and Sinn Fein’s Padraig MacLochlainn. That’s now four outstanding by elections to the Dail… It’s as though Oireachtas was making its own case that there are already too many representatives in Leinster House.

Adds: So was he pushed? Or was this Dr Jim’s revenge ahead of what has to be a savage budget? The Bond Market rate for Irish debt is 7.2% as of 10 this morning.

Update: Apparently, McDaid’s own office found out by text just after it was announced on Highland radio. At a public meeting last night he spoke about his dilemma, but had apparently not made up his mind.

Plus side for FF is that it is one less vote against the budget (which may now be considerably foreshortened so Lenihan can line up all his wee ducks for the ECB/IMF).. Minus is how does the party risk those four by elections (lose them all, and the Dail majority is gone)…

Update 2: Harry McGee has a good write up on state of play within Donegal and where this leaves the government… UPdate 3: And here’s his last letter to the Taoiseach arguing that the national interest lay in an early general election on the RTE Frontline site

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.