McDaid resignation spoils party as Coalition teeters on the brink

“THEY gave me nothing and I owe them nothing” was how Jim McDaid summed up his relationship with Fianna Fáil back in 2007, just after he regained his seat on the party’s ticket in Donegal North East.

Throughout this Dáil term, he continued this detachment from the party and stood aloof from Fianna Fáil on a number of issues.

Because of his quasi-independent status, there is no huge sense of loss in Fianna Fáil over his resignation from the Dáil.

Although the suddenness of his decision came as a surprise, some had been more surprised that he ran at all in the last election, given his growing dissatisfaction since losing his job as junior minister in 2004.

The Government decided to take the positives from yesterday’s announcement, arguing his resignation will be no great loss to their majority because they never depended on his vote.

They could also take the glass-half-full view that his resignation removes a possible threat of him voting with the opposition in the budget, or at any other time, and the risk of bringing both sides of the House dangerously close in numerical terms.

By taking yesterday’s decision, McDaid avoided having to vote against the Government.

Usually he chose not to turn up to votes at all, missing 18 out of 25 in the first half of this year.

Since the summer, he insisted he would not vote for the budget because of threatened cuts to the local health services.

“Enough is enough. Unquestionably so,” he told his local newspaper in July, perhaps deciding to resign altogether instead of making the difficult choice of voting against Fianna Fáil.

In a letter to Brian Cowen this week, before his decision to resign, McDaid said “the current Dáil arithmetic prevents decisive action being undertaken by a sitting Government”.

He said this “continuing, and deepening” uncertainty about Dáil numbers “has resulted in necessary decisions being postponed in the hope that future events will make those decisions unnecessary”.

Without a general election soon the Government would be “paralysed by political uncertainty and instability” according to McDaid.

The Government now holds a majority in the Dáil of just three TDs, and these cannot be fully relied on.

A change of heart by just two of these means the current coalition is over.

Mr McDaid’s departure means the Dáil now has 162 TDs, including the Ceann Comhairle, Seamus Kirk, which brings the voting deputies down to 161.

Since the last election, when Fianna Fáil got 78 seats, it gained one, Beverly Flynn, and lost four – Joe Behan, the late Seamus Brennan, Martin Cullen, Pat the Cope Gallagher, and now Jim McDaid and the Ceann Comhairle.

That brings the party’s total voting TDs down to 73. Three of those are outside the whip – Jimmy Devins; Eamon Scanlon; and Mattie McGrath.

Their voting behaviour is unpredictable.

The Green Party has six TDs on whose votes the Government can depend, bringing the total to 79.

When three independents, including Mary Harney, Michael Lowry and Jackie Healy-Rae, are taken into account, the Government’s shaky majority stands at 82.

This is against 79 on the opposition benches, made up of 51 in Fine Gael, 20 in Labour, four in Sinn Féin and four independents, including Finian McGrath, Maureen O’Sullivan, Joe Behan and former PD Noel Grealish, who will not support cuts to the health budget.

With 82 versus 79, it would take just two out of the three who are outside the whip – aka Jackie Healy Rae, Michael Lowry and Mattie McGrath – to bring down the Government.

With their currency ever increasing, they are unlikely to live by the motto of “All for one and one for all”.

It will be something more like each for himself in the competitive election battlefields.

This was already apparent yesterday when, just hours after the McDaid announcement, Mr Lowry indicated he may not support the Budget.

“Obviously Jackie Healy Rae’s and my support is now more crucial than it has been in the past but in my mind all of the time is that the country is on the brink of losing its economic independence,” he said.

The latest change in the Dáil arithmetic is important, not just because it emboldens other TDs considering withdrawing their support for the Government, or because its relevance in the enactment of policy, but because it further undermines what remains of the Taoiseach’s authority.

Dáil numbers

* Government votes:

Fianna Fáil: 70.

FF TDs who have lost the whip, who support the Government, but their vote cannot be relied on: 3.

Independents who are voting with the Government: 3, including Mary Harney.

Green Party: Six.

TOTAL: 82

* Opposition votes:

FG: 51.

Labour: 20.

Sinn Féin: 4.

Opposition against the Government: 4, including Noel Grealish.

TOTAL: 79