The dispute over speaking rights continued today, ending in the same uproar as before. The Dáil took a vote on a government motion which was carried 94 to 74, but not without, as the Ceann Comhairle put it, TDs “making a holy show of themselves”.
"You're making an absolute holy show of yourselves."
The Dáil has been suspended after a chaotic row over speaking rights | Read more: https://t.co/sWRVOJEdLj pic.twitter.com/dcapG4F4dc— RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 25, 2025
Opposition tellers refused to verify the vote but the clerk apparently informed the Ceann Comhairle that in absence of a challenge she could declare it carried. Taoiseach’s questions were to follow, but with the Opposition in uproar it was adjourned.
As Gavan Reilly noted in a tweet afterwards the dispute has certainly unified the opposition…
Tell you what; this has unified the opposition like nothing before. SF, Lab, SD, Ind Ireland, PBP, Aontu and Greens are all here. pic.twitter.com/RVul631tSo
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) March 25, 2025
It’s true also that it has unified everyone else. The cause may have unified Sinn Féin, Labour, the Soc Dems with others to line up against the motion (which grants some government TDs 8 mins of speaking time) but they are still 20 votes short.
But the two months it has also hardened the resolve of government TDs and minister to reverse the opposition’s case against it. In a recent Op Ed in the Irish version of the Sunday Times James Lawless, the minister for Higher Education, pointed out..
Our current parliamentary system is based on an adversarial, opposition versus government, architecture. Fair enough. But as the opposition has factionalised and diversified over the past two decades their time slots have expanded, while government response time has remained static.
To illustrate this point, take a typical two-hour private members’ debate. Government TDs are allocated just 20 minutes, 10 minutes at the start and again at the end, with rest of the 100 minutes given to opposition TDs. We see the same disparity across other parliamentary debates and discussions.
But, under our multi-seat PR system all TDs enjoy the same mandate and have equal right to represent their constituents. Why should the Dáil give such a disproportional representation to non- government supporting TDs? [Emphasis added]
This case couldn’t be heard today, but it is key to why the Opposition lost this vote and will continue to lose any future votes on the matter that they may try to press. Sinn Fein TDs alone take 52% of such speaking slots on just 22% of the seats.
To the eyes of anyone else looking in this is a very odd state of affairs. These are not rules that apply to any other chamber on these islands, be it Westminster, Stormont, the Senedd or Holyrood. Nor will you find them in other mainstream democracies.
The issue should have been shut down months ago. For now the opposition is denying itself the right to haul ministers in front of committees (and given the remarks of the governor of the Bank of Ireland on planning yesterday that’s a non trivial matter).
But it seems they just could not handle the additional time being given to government TDs. Fair enough. But what doesn’t sit well is having particularly loud and very aggressive male TDs harangue Ireland’s first woman speaker into silence.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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