'Give up the nonsense': Michael Healy-Rae wants parties to form govt without second election

Independent Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae has said he will meet with Sinn Féin on Wednesday.

“It would be bad manners to say no,” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Séan O’Rourke show.

“People voted for change, the majority voted for Sinn Féin, it makes no sense to go back to the country, to ask the same question again. An election costs €40m to €50m.

The people have spoken, it’s now up to the politicians to talk. It’s nonsense to say they are going into Opposition.

Mr Healy-Rae said there were great concerns about how Sinn Féin is going “to pay for what they proposed.”

Galway West Independent TD Noel Grealish added that the three main parties need to talk.

“Independents always put their shoulder to the wheel. There are a lot of independents willing to support the government,” he said.

However, Mr Grealish also said that Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald had said that she would not talk to him.

Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid-West) said that his party wants to talk to ‘pro change’ parties and that they are “genuinely in the business of forming a government of change.

“We want to get down to the serious business to see what opportunities are there. This isn’t about maths, it’s about agreeing to a programme of change.

If it’s going to be Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael then nothing changes. They caused the problem.

“We want a serious policy conversation. We are open to talking to all parties. We want to be in government.”

Noel Grealish predicted that Mary Lou McDonald will get the most votes on Thursday in the Dáil if there is a vote for Taoiseach, but that “the numbers are there” for a Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Greens coalition and that “some Independents willing be willing to talk to them.”

But Mr Grealish said that some TDs did not want to be in Government and preferred to stay in Opposition, when asked who, he said that People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett “enjoys Opposition. I couldn’t see him being serious about going into government.”

Mr Healy-Rae repeated that he would “talk to anybody. That’s my job, to represent the best interests of county Kerry.”

He urged politicians to “roll up their sleeves and give up their nonsense.”