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Updated 4.07pm
INDEPENDENT TD RÓISÍN Shortall has been expelled from the Dáil after a row with the Ceann Comhairle this morning.
TDs voted 72 to 33 to suspend the Dublin North-West deputy.
Shortall had a lengthy row with Seán Barrett after she accused him of “shutting down” a debate over the costs of the grant to be given to every home that registers with Irish Water.
It was claimed during a debate on amendments to the Water Services Bill last night that 1.65 million households are entitled to the €100 grant – more than the 1.3 million houses the government claims will get it.
The row today broke out as the Dáil debated other amendments and in a statement issued this afternoon, a spokesperson for the Ceann Comhairle said that TDs’ contributions must be relevant to the amendment being discussed.
“It is not in order to deal with extraneous matters. Nor is it in order to debate amendments that have already been discussed and agreed/not agreed,” they said.
TheJournal Politics / TwitterCeann Comhairle Seán Barrett: "Now you're really tempting me."
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) December 12, 2014
If this were the case then the grant would end up costing €35 million more than was first claimed.
Shortall said there had been no clarity from Environment Minister Alan Kelly this morning and accused Barrett shutting down the debate which she described as a “charade”.
TheJournal Politics / TwitterCeann Comhairle tells Roisin Shortall "You're a senior deputy, don't be making a show of yourself. "
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) December 12, 2014
TDs took to Twitter to voice their displeasure at events this morning:
Catherine Murphy / TwitterMore farcical scenes here as CC suspends yet another opposition TD for daring to question Gov & refuse to be silenced on an important issue
— Catherine Murphy (@CathMurphyTD) December 12, 2014
Shane Ross / Twitter
Shane Ross / Twitter / Twitter
Jonathan O'Brien / TwitterThe farce continues in the #Dail ...Vote called to eject Roisín Shortall from the chamber for having the audacity to questions costs of IW
— Jonathan O'Brien (@JOBrien_71) December 12, 2014
The Ceann Comhairle’s spokesperson pointed out that members are not entitled to “re-run the debate on amendments to that section which have been disposed of”.
They added: “The rules governing Committee Stage strike a fair balance between on the one hand the right of Members to properly debate and scrutinise legislation, and on the other, the need to ensure that legislation can be processed in an orderly and efficient way through the House.
“It is the role of the Ceann Comhairle to ensure that Members adhere to these rules as set out in Standing Orders when making their contributions.”
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Not enough socialism, apparently.
@P.J. Nolan: essential ingredients of successful durable socialism is a brutally heavy handed military government, fake elections and an elite oligarchy. It never works without those pillars.
@alphanautica: you mean like norway, sweden or finland? Awful kips huh? Thank god we live here.
@Fake Avast: Yeah it was the USA that made Venezuela into an ungovernable socialist hellhole and not the policies of Hugo Chavez as he rots in the ground
Venezuela is AAA-PBP-SF’s role model economy.
This article is clearly as cheap shot at undermining their economic expertise.
@alphanautica: #pearseknowsbest
@Honeybadger197: Corbyn should head over on a mission. Give him a good PA system on the main square, they’d all settle down quite quickly once the hear what he has to say.
@alphanautica: There is virtually no policy in Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto that isn’t already followed in the Nordic states. Try playing another record, the Venezuela analogies are looking every bit as threadbare as Lynton Crosby’s IRA smear campaign.
@Harry Whitehead: you might want to get on to Corbyn so: ‘Chavez showed us that there is a different and a better way of doing things’ are his own words coming out of his own megaphone.
All those Corbyn cultists from earlier on should take note that this is his vision of a country that “got socialism right”.
How did we accept austerity so easily? Was it because it mainly dehumanised the poorest & sickest citizens especially Labour and FGs extremely regressive 5 budgets from hell.
Labour you are Still 4-6% in the polls cos u lied to the most vulnerable and caused homelessness ti become the norm for the badly off and people are years now waiting in agony on hospital waiting lists.
No matter what happened in Venezuela it wasn’t these young people’s fault more the fault of older people. If it was my child I’d want them where they were safe which is here.
The Journal goes straight for the click-bait kill as usual. A man wasn’t set alight, he was beating an abandoned state-owned motorbike with a stick, the petrol tank exploded and his clothes caught fire. It was a horrific event, but please don’t resort to lazy journalism for the sake of dramatic headlines
…oh, the unending joys of socialism!
Hopefully Venezuela has an Enda Kenny rising up through the political ranks who can rescue their country from the brink.
As happened in Ireland, we barely escaped the deathly clutches of the hard left, those naive self-convinced loons beset on suffocating economic improvement through hard work and instead wanting to suck an economy dry with their inert socialist begging bowl.
Perhaps there will be Enda Kenny tshirts circulating soon in Venezuela, modelled on Che Guevara, another proud Irishman of principle.
He’s not asking anyone to pay his tuition, the chap was robbed by his government like all the other students who have been robbed of life savings who came here to study. He is highlighting a situation that a lot of Venezuela’s who are here are in. Venezuela is in a dire place and the people are being killed in the streets everyday. They are being starved and robbed. How you can make light of that is beyond me.
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