The Labour Party whip said today that he is confident the party can recover, despite enduring "a terrible day" at the polls.

I refer to the article about Emmet Stagg by Shaun Connolly (Irish Examiner, Dec 17) ‘€97k TD: I’d make more as a plumber’.

THE opposition stormed out of the Dáil — nobody noticed. The stunt, which was to protest the Government’s habit of railroading legislation through the Oireachtas only drew mild attention because it followed a TD’s bid to get a minister to drink contaminated water during a rowdy debate on the introduction of metering.

A senior Labour TD has claimed he would earn more as a plumber than the €97,000 he receives for sitting in the Dáil.

Education Minister Ruairí Quinn has called for the board of the Central Remedial Clinic to quit as the controversy over the use of public donations to top-up the salaries of well-paid managers escalates.

More than 90% of TDs who responded to a recent survey thought politicians should not ban alcohol in Leinster House.

Labour Party chief whip Emmet Stagg welcomed

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A second prominent Labour TD has come out against the Government's proposals to abolish the Seanad.

The Social Protection Minister Joan Burton has said the Government has not discussed the referendum on the abolition of the Seanad in detail yet.

Plans to sweep away the Seanad have left Labour openly divided.

The privatisation of the State’s forestry agency, Coillte, “looks more un-likely every day”, according to Pat Rabbitte, the minister for communications.

The Programme for Government should be renegotiated rather than reviewed, Labour Chief Whip Emmet Stagg said today.

Gerard Howlin looks at the repercussions from the Meath-East by-election and argues that what matters more than who wins, is how the result compares to expectation

Formerly famous as the foul-mouthed Green who thought he might be 25% gay, ex-TD Paul Gogarty has staged a remarkable return to national attention as an unlikely chart star.

A rocked Labour has rounded on its rebel chairman, with senior party members calling for his resignation.

Hundreds of family carers are heading to the Dáil this afternoon to voice their outrage at Budget 2013.

The deputy leader of the Labour Party has said she is sorry and saddened at the resignation of Roisín Shortall.

Róisín Shortall has quit her role and resigned the party whip after a series of controversies with her department chief Health Minister James Reilly.

Labour Party Chief Whip Emmet Stagg believes that James Reilly knew for five days that the Chief Executive of the HSE planned to resign, but told neither the Taoiseach nor Tánaiste.

The Deputy Government Whip has said that Mick Wallace could face a Garda probe if a "good citizen" were to make a complaint against him.

A rebel Labour backbencher has become the third Government TD kicked out of the coalition after he refused to support the bank guarantee and called on the party to return to opposition.

A Labour backbencher has become the third TD to rebel against the coalition after the Government moved to extend the bank guarantee scheme.

Labour Party Chief Whip, Emmett Stagg, has said he did not threaten MEP Nessa Childers with expulsion from the party.

The parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler are suing the News of the World over claims a private investigator working for the newspaper hacked into her phone after she went missing.

UP until recently, the Government was having a reasonably comfortable time of it. No major gaffes. No indication of public outrage at the U-turns they had already performed. The Queen of England and the US President coming to visit and lending a bit of cheer. Everything had been going swimmingly. But in the last week to 10 days, the first signs of strain have begun to appear.

Labour's Emmet Stagg has been elected in Kildare North.

No candidate has been elected in Kildare North, which had a quota of 10,245. Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan topped the poll, with 10,168 votes.

Renegade TD Jim McDaid is to quit politics, it was confirmed today.

THE week’s work will begin at 2.30pm on Wednesday. The Taoiseach won’t be present to answer questions and no votes will be held. Yet, the Government has defended next week’s Dáil agenda.

FOUL-MOUTHED TDs will be forced to mind their language under a new code of conduct.

RULES governing the Dáil are to be strengthened so TDs will be suspended from the House if they resort to the expletive-laden language used by Green deputy Paul Gogarty last week.

DÁIL tensions sparked by deep welfare cuts exploded into foul-mouthed rage yesterday as a Government TD shouted: “Fuck you!” at an opposition deputy in the chamber.

GOVERNMENT TD Paul Gogarty’s foul-mouthed outburst in the Dáil came after his admission that he would support the budget cuts to public sector pay and social welfare even though they were “fundamentally unfair” and “wrong”.

WORK-HUNGRY TDs are set to agree new Dáil schedules to cut their holidays and get started earlier each morning.

Almost three hundred jobs are to go at Intel in Leixlip, Co Kildare.

The Government has only published one piece of scheduled legislation since January despite promising 18, it was claimed today.

MINISTERS last night insisted TDs were “entitled” to take a €3,000 pay rise — despite deputies saying they did not want the increase because of the backlash it would provoke.

AN ambitious effort to reform the operation of the Dáil in time for the autumn session has begun.

NEW laws to allow churches and other bodies to exchange “soft information” on suspected paedophiles are not being given the priority they need in upcoming legislation, the opposition warned last night.

THE first row of what promises to be a bitter new Dáil term broke out last night before the house had even opened its doors for business.

LABOUR chief whip Emmet Stagg has claimed cannabis should be legalised so that young people are taken out of the grip of the criminals behind the drugs trade.

EAMON GILMORE yesterday became the first Labour TD to formally declare his candidacy for the leadership of the party.

THE new Labour leader is likely to be announced in the middle of October following a drawn-out election process involving the entire party membership.

Rowdy exchanges marred business in the Dáil today as Tánaiste Michael McDowell and Opposition leaders traded political insults.