Social Democrats will not be third leg of Government table with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil
The Social Democrats said the party has seen no indications that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would not plunge the country into austerity to deal with the post-Covid-19 recession.
Co-leader Róisín Shortall seemed to rule out becoming the “third leg of the table” in government formation, due to her concerns over how the Civil War parties plan to deal with the oncoming economic crisis.
“We’ll certainly speak to other parties and have engaged over the last number of weeks with all parties about the prospect of forming government,” she said.
“What is missing is how the very big bill arising from the current deep recession is going to be paid for.
“The two parties concerned have stated that there won’t be tax increases but that was said in the last recession, and when we look back to then, we see that it was the bottom 20% of income earners who paid the biggest price, so it has to be a fair recovery, and we need clear indications from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they are going to do things differently.
“But to date there has been no indication that they will do things differently this time around.”
Pressure has been mounting on the Green Party as the favourite to join Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in the new government coalition.
The Greens appeared to open the door to further coalition talks last week, but leader Eamon Ryan, who is understood to be in favour of joining government, said his party would need similar assurances to those raised by Ms Shorthall, and on climate and housing, if they were to progress to the next step of negotiations.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have 72 seats between them, need an 80-seat majority to form a government and have been discussing their new policy framework document with Independent groups this week in an effort to tempt them into coalition.
A spokesperson for Fine Gael said it is aware that the smaller parties are still “considering the framework document and we look forward to meeting with them”.
