Responding to the charges made by Deputy Johnny Guirke and Cian O’Callaghan, Peadar Tóibín stated:
Aontú is completely opposed to this government. Indeed, we ruled out government formation negotiations with these parties from before the election, and we lived up to that commitment after the election. It should be noted that SF, Labour, Independent Ireland, and the Soc Dems all left the door open to government with FF and FG.
Currently, if you are not in a Technical Group, you have little or no speaking rights. You have to beg, borrow, and steal one minute here and two minutes there to speak. You have no Leaders’ Questions. You have to enter a lottery to question a Minister. You have no Committee membership in order to hold Ministers to account. SF should remember this well, as they were in a similar situation when Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was their Dáil leader.
Unfortunately, they seem to have lost their Standing Order reform zeal since those days. Aontú has always called for the Standing Orders of the Dáil to be reformed to allow for each TD to be able to speak in the Dáil on an equal basis. This should be the democratic basis of any parliament, and it would prevent the current difficulties.
In the last Dáil, Aontú used our speaking rights to better effect than any other political party, holding this government to account on Covid, the referendums, increased fuel taxes, the shocking number of children in or known to state care, losing their lives and the collapse of Garda numbers.
I have spoken in over 100 committee discussions and Dáil debates in the last year. I have asked 1,060 questions of Ministers in the last year. These figures are well above average among TDs. Johnny Guirke has spoken in the Dáil and in Committees 22 times in the last year and has asked just 59 questions. Johnny Guirke is the “Fr Stone” of Irish politics. Speaking rights may not be important to Deputy Guirke, but they are to the people who live in Meath.
If anyone thinks Aontú will give up our democratic right to hold this government to account, they are very wrong. If anyone thinks that that Aontú is going to give up our hard fought right to represent our constituents in the Dáil, they are very wrong. We will not renege on our promise to represent the nearly 100,000 people who voted for us.
It is cynical for any party to demand that Aontú give up our speaking rights without offering to share their speaking rights with us. Is Mary Lou going to provide Aontú with her Leader’s question time, Minister’s questions or Committee debate time? Of course not.
Cian O’Callaghan said that if Aontú withdrew from the Technical Group it would fall. This is rubbish. Cian needs to brush up on his maths. If Aontú withdrew from the Technical Group it would not make any difference. The Technical Group would still exist and Aontú TDs would be silenced.
This may suit some in the cosy consensus that often passes itself for an opposition; those who have supported the government on many issues such as the referendums and immigration in the recent past.
The simple answer to this is Dáil Standing Orders reform. But it appears that the parties shouting the most are the least likely to seek reform.
