Ireland’s incoming prime minister, Micheál Martin, has accused opponents of a “subversion of the Irish constitution” after formal election to the role was cancelled amid chaotic scenes in the Irish parliament.
The outgoing taoiseach, Martin’s coalition partner, Simon Harris, called Wednesday’s events in Dáil an “utter disgrace [with] so many pressing issues” facing the country, as a spiralling row over the speaking rights of independent TDs torpedoed the first day of Martin’s new term in office.
Ireland faces an urgent need to launch a diplomatic offensive in Washington to head off any threat from the Trump administration to repatriate jobs and taxes paid by US multinationals with European headquarters in Ireland, including Apple, Microsoft, Meta, X and Pfizer.
The independent TD Michael Healy-Rae said all TDs should get on with delivering government as proceedings collapsed in the Dáil. “We see what is happening in America. We need decisiveness,” he said.
The new government, elected in November, should have taken its first steps on Wednesday morning in a set-piece ceremony in which Martin would have been formally appointed by the president of Ireland at about 2pm.
Instead the day was left in tatters with proceedings suspended multiple times. The new speaker, Verona Murphy, lost control of the house and the president, Michael D Higgins, was left hanging.
At the centre of the row were attempts by independent TDs who have agreed to prop up the new government to remain on the opposition benches so they have speaking time to air their constituents’ concerns.
On a second attempt to get the election under way, Murphy, who appeared to be struck by a crisis of self-confidence, stood up, announced the house was adjourned until 10am and walked out.
Martin said: “This is the first time in 100 years the Dáil has failed to elect a government to fulfil its constitutional obligation.”
Fury ran just as deep in the opposition. The Labour TD Alan Kelly told RTÉ the words should “haunt” Martin for the rest of his career as opposition TDs were fighting for the “principles of democracy”.
The Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, criticised what she said was a cynical ruse by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael “to place their independent cronies, supporters of the government, on the opposition benches and to afford them the same speaking rights of the opposition”.
Murphy initially suspended the Dáil for 15 minutes but upon its return she was forced to suspend it again.
The Dáil will make a second run at electing the taoiseach on Thursday, with Martin claiming the issue over speaking rights could easily be resolved through standing orders. However, Sinn Féin and Labour leaders pushed a united front, saying they would not be backing down, and demanded the matter of speaking rights was fixed before Martin’s election.
Martin and Harris will lead the new government in a near repeat of their partnership that ran the country up until November’s general election.
Under the deal hammered out between the two main parties, Martin will remain taoiseach for three years, with Harris taking over in November 2027.
Harris will become deputy prime minister, with a beefed-up foreign affairs ministerial role to include international trade, a role already dubbed “minister for Trump”.
If Thursday’s election does materialise, he will name his 15-strong cabinet. Just four ministerial roles are expected to go to women after an election that resulted in the lowest proportion of female parliamentarians in western Europe, with a 75:25 ratio of men to women.
The two centre-right parties were only one seat short of the 87 majority needed to form a government on their own. But with their third partner, the Greens, virtually wiped out, and Labour and the Social Democrats deciding against coalition, the two parties are relying on a confidence and supply deal with a group of 10 independents.
The most senior woman in the government, Helen McEntee, a former justice minister and key minister of state during the Brexit negotiations, is expected to get the education portfolio, with Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the outgoing Europe minister, expected to get the health job.
