DUBLIN — Ireland’s political opposition is threatening to disrupt parliament indefinitely in a showdown over whether a group of pro-government independent lawmakers can sit on both sides of the house at the same time.
Ever since its formation last month, the coalition government of Taoiseach Micheál Martin has struggled to get down to business because of the unusual way it built its parliamentary majority: two parties plus nine loose-cannon conservatives roped together under a flag of convenience, “the Regional Independent Group.”
Martin managed to secure election as Taoiseach only on the second try after opposition chiefs rejected his government’s unfolding deal to secure backing from the Regional Independent Group, a.k.a. the “Riggers.”
Of the original nine, one — Verona Murphy — received the most lucrative position of all as the parliament’s new and officially neutral speaker. Four others became junior ministers, including two with Cabinet-insider status.
The final four were expected to join the government backbenches. Instead, led by the parliament’s most scandal-struck figure, Michael Lowry, they recruited two anti-government independents into the Rigger brand.
This maneuver, boosting the group back up to six, achieved the bare quorum needed to secure speaking rights alongside real parties of opposition. The opposition insisted they wouldn’t tolerate this.
After weeks of deadlock and backroom negotiation, government patience wore out Wednesday. They used their majority to push through new rules in a late-night meeting of the parliamentary reform committee. It enshrined special speaking time each week for the Regional Independents in new speaking slots for pro-government and “nonaligned” lawmakers.
The opposition — led by the nationalist Sinn Féin and backed by a panoply of smaller left-wing parties — rejected this and are threatening to disrupt the parliament.
On Thursday, they announced an immediate suspension of “pairing,” the common parliamentary custom in which the opposition doesn’t exploit the absence of government ministers — who often travel on business, particularly to EU events in Brussels — to win votes while they’re away.
In the short term, the government won’t be in position to lose votes on any key legislation — because the unresolved dispute means the parliament hasn’t managed to form any of the dozens of committees that scrutinize, amend and advance bills.
These all-party panels are often led by opposition lawmakers reflecting each party’s strength. The Regional Independents want their members to get at least one of those plum jobs, too.
Martin and his government partner, Foreign Minister Simon Harris, have dismissed the opposition’s concerns as overblown. They insist that the government solution pushed through Wednesday night creates only 16 minutes of extra speaking time weekly. These new slots, they said, would be used by all government backbenchers, not only Regional Independents.
In parliamentary debate, Harris accused Sinn Féin of being “utterly childish” and seeking to sabotage key business, particularly the ability of government ministers to travel.
Martin, who on Thursday traveled to Shannon Airport in western Ireland to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a refueling pitstop for the Ukrainian leader, told reporters that the opposition’s hostility to the Regional Independents “has been very disproportionate.”
“No one in opposition loses any time at all,” Martin said. “The whole thing has been an overreaction.”
Opposition chiefs — including Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman, a key figure in Ireland’s previous coalition government and, until last month, a Cabinet colleague of Martin and Harris — accused both men of deliberately understating the true scope of the rule-bending being sought to keep Regional Independents happy.
He, like many opposition lawmakers, singled out the pivotal role of Lowry, who survived a 2011 parliamentary censure over his central role in a 14-year corruption tribunal. It found that Lowry’s 19 disclosed bank accounts at the time involved “contemptuous” levels of tax evasion, undocumented income, suspicious payments from top businessmen, and at least one lobbying effort deemed “profoundly corrupt.”
“The government are creating this platform for ‘the Lowry Group’ both to be in Cabinet, and at the same time to have a foot in opposition and to be criticizing the government at the same time,” O’Gorman said. “They’re allowing this group of independents to play both sides of the fence. That cynical approach to politics does huge damage.”
The rule changes face a make-or-break vote in the full parliament next week. Opposition leaders could respond with a walkout, heckling when “Riggers” attempt to speak, or other disruptive tactics.
A lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, Duncan Smith, suggested they were unlikely to accept defeat: “We can make life very difficult for the government.”
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