The Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín TD has accused the government of “bending the rules” in the Dáil to postpone a vote on an Aontú motion on voting rights in presidential elections, transparency in the Áras and reform of the nomination process, until after the presidential election.
Speaking today, Deputy Tóibín said: “What has emerged from the Business Committee in recent days is shocking. The government are again manipulating Dáil democracy to protect their narrow party interests before the Presidential Election. Every week in the Dáil there is a ‘voting block’ on a Wednesday night, where all matters discussed and debated over the previous week are voted upon. This Wednesday Aontú is tabling a motion which seeks voting rights for Irish citizens in the north during presidential elections, transparency in the Áras including mandating the publication of spending accounts, and a reform of the nomination process to make it easier for candidates to get onto the ballot paper. This week the business committee (where the government has a majority) decided that the weekly voting block will be held on Tuesday evening, rather than Wednesday which will mean Aontú’s proposals will not be voted on until a week after the election”.
Deputy Tóibín continued: “What the government are effectively saying here is that they won’t tell us whether they support reforms of Áras an Uachtarán until after the Irish people have cast their votes in the presidential election this Friday. The government last week tore up the Dáil schedule to table a motion of confidence in Simon Harris, to ensure that the Aontú debate on the scoliosis crisis would not be the backdrop to the presidential election. Not since 1976 has a confidence motion been brought forward a week in order to prevent the opposition tabling a no confidence motion. So, then we opted to bring forward a motion which sought reforms of the office of president, and they again manipulated the schedule, they departed from our long standing tradition of holding votes on Wednesdays to ensure that the vote on Aontú’s proposals will not take place until 14 days after they are debated.
This is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. I cannot think of any other occasion where the government moved the voting block to a Tuesday despite the Dáil sitting on a Wednesday. Neither can I think of any legitimate reason they would have for doing this only for their own political defence. They do not wish to show their true colours by way of Dáil vote, for fear it would hurt them in the election. We have a situation in the country right now where people from the north can contest presidential elections and can hold the office of president, but are deprived of their right to vote in those elections. We have a situation where the Freedom of Information Act specifically excludes the office of president from the same level of scrutiny and transparency that other public offices are subjected to. We have a situation where an individual seeking to have their name on the ballot paper must jump through extraordinary hoops and meet a near-impossible threshold to get onto the ballot. The government enforced this threshold in a far stricter fashion in this election in order to block certain candidates. This has made a mess of the presidential election. Citizens are furious with the democratic deficit that they have created. The last thing the government want is a Dáil vote on the issue” concluded Tóibín.
CRIOCH
