Lenihan laments ‘a bad day for Irish politics’

FIANNA FÁIL ministers have savaged Labour leader Eamon Gilmore for kick-starting the process which forced the resignation of Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan denounced the forced resignation as a bad day for Irish politics, saying Mr O’Donoghue had not been given opportunity to explain his travel bills and expenses.

Defence Minister Willie O’Dea insinuated that Mr Gilmore’s intervention was worse than a Stalinist show trial, being a case of “sentence first, trial afterwards”.

They made their comments, despite a flood of letters to newspapers and calls to radio stations from the public outraged at Mr O’Donoghue’s spending.

Mr Gilmore told the Ceann Comhairle on Tuesday in the Dáil that his position was no longer tenable because of the spending controversy. The Labour leader said Mr O’Donoghue would have to resign or face being forced out. Within hours, Mr O’Donoghue announced he would step down next week.

Mr Lenihan claimed Mr Gilmore’s actions had not been “right or proper”. Mr O’Donoghue had been due to give an explanation of his expenses to the commission that runs the Dáil, but instead was left with little option but to resign after Mr Gilmore’s intervention.

“You wouldn’t treat a member of a trade union like that, or a worker, or there would be a general strike,” Mr Lenihan told RTÉ. “I don’t think there was a great dignity about it and I don’t think it was a good day for Irish politics.”

In Carlow, Mr O’Dea claimed a lot of people would feel sorry for Mr O’Donoghue.

“I think the great side of the majority out there won’t want to dance on John O’Donoghue’s grave. I think an awful lot of people will genuinely feel sorry for him. An awful lot of people won’t admire the Labour Party for this sort of opportunism. Time will tell.”

In the Dáil, Taoiseach Brian Cowen accused some people of “dancing on the grave” of Mr O’Donoghue after both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin demanded that the Ceann Comhairle step down immediately rather than wait until next week.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he had sympathy for Mr O’Donoghue.

“He was a fine minister, a fine politician, a very hard-working person and I know John O’Donoghue was one of those ministers who was reluctant to travel,” Mr Ahern said at a book signing in Belfast.

“The perception is that he wanted to be away all the time. That is not the case.”

Any hopes Mr O’Donoghue had of remaining in office during a snap general election were blown apart by Gilmore.

The outgoing Dáil speaker was accused of delaying his resignation until next week in case the Greens’ special weekend convention decides to quit the coalition and trigger a national poll, but Gilmore warned he would insist on a new Ceann Comhairle before any dissolution of the Oireachtas.

With Green rebels needing the support of just one-in-three party activists to bring down the coalition with Fianna Fáil by voting against a renegotiated programme for government at the party’s conference this Saturday, a snap general election being called next week is a live possibility, though still unlikely.

Fears such a scenario would allow Mr O’Donoghue to remain as outgoing Ceann Comhairle and thus be re-elected unopposed to the next Dáil prompted Mr Gilmore to lay down a marker at Leader’s Questions.

With Mr O’Donoghue noticeable by his absence as he attended to “office matters and his resignation statement”, the Labour leader made it clear he would keep the vote of no confidence on the Dáil schedule as a “nuclear option” to force the election of a new Ceann Comhairle next week even if the Government fell.

“I intend to leave the motion on the Order Paper and, if there is any attempt to take advantage of any changing political circumstances, I will insist that the motion be taken before any other business.”