Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin went on the attack against Sinn Féin yesterday, over its abstentionist policy in Westminster, and was joined by other opponents of the party calling for action in light of the ramifications that Brexit will have on Ireland.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to make concessions to hardline Brexiteers in order to avoid a defeat in the House of Commons on her Brexit plans.
In the end she passed the bill for the whole of the UK to leave the EU’s VAT regime by just three votes.
One of those concessions inserted contradicts the EU’s legal draft of the Irish backstop, which would keep Northern Ireland within the customs union for a period of time, avoiding the need for a hard border.
Sinn Féin – which had seven MPs elected in the 2017 general election – does not take any seats in Westminster, in part due to a party policy of not taking an oath of allegiance to the British monarch.
With the DUP helping to prop up May’s Conservative government, and crucial Brexit decisions currently being made that will affect Northern Ireland, Micheál Martin said that this Sinn Féin policy allowed the hardline Brexiteers to win the vote.
He tweeted: “Hardline Brexiteers won last evening’s Westminster vote because of Sinn Féin abstentionism. Anti-Brexit majority in Northern Ireland not represented in any forum. Durkan, Ritchie, and McDonnell would have defeated that damaging vote for Ireland.”
Martin was joined in this condemnation of Sinn Féin by Fine Gael Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan who said Sinn Féin’s “refusal to take up its Westminster seats has plunged the British PM into the clutches of the hard Brexiteers again”.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood tweeted that “the idea that because Sinn Féin won seats as abstentionists, no one can ever question abstentionism is ridiculous”, and added “our fate is being decided at Westminster right now”.
Strong mandate
Republican abstentionism from elected office stretches back over 100 years. It is just over 30 years ago that Sinn Féin agreed to end its abstentionist policy from the Dáil by 429 votes to 161.
The long-standing practice of refusing to take up seats in Westminster continues to this day, with the party running candidates on the clear policy of abstentionism.
Voters are made aware that a vote for Sinn Féin in the House of Commons means they’re voting for a candidate who will not take up a seat if elected.
All MPs must take an oath to the Queen when taking their seats in Westminster, swearing true allegiance to the monarch. Sinn Féin opts not to do this.
In the most recent election, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) were the only Nothern Ireland parties to win seats. The other nationalist party, the SDLP, who would have taken up Westminster seats, failed to win one.
Pressure has come on Sinn Féin to change its abstentionist policy within the context of Brexit as majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU.
Given that the decisions being made in the House of Commons now will directly affect the future of the island of Ireland, the argument made from Sinn Féin opponents such as Martin and Flanagan is that with such tight margins in the Commons they could help swing votes towards a more favourable result for Ireland.
Writing in the Guardian in March, Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey said that sitting in the British parliament is “not what I was elected for”.
“We are not British MPs,” he said. “We are Irish MPs and we believe the interests of the Irish people can only be served by democratic institutions on the island of Ireland.
Sinn Féin goes to the electorate seeking a mandate for that position. We are elected as MPs who vote for Sinn Féin not to take seats at Westminster.
Maskey went on to say that the “people of Ireland will not find a solution to Brexit in the parliament that is imposing it”.
Crucial votes
Even if Sinn Féin were to take its seats and vote against the government, it’s not a certainty that it could defeat the Conservatives on any crucial topics, given how the mathematics of the Tory majority is borne out.
There are 650 MPs elected to the House of Commons. Four of them – the house speaker and the deputy speakers – do not vote, unless there is a tie break.
When you add in the seven Sinn Féin MPs who abstain, it means that the maximum amount of MPs that could vote in a regular vote would be 639.
To win a vote, 320 MPs must back a proposal.
Theresa May’s Conservative party has 316 seats, and it has also secured the support of the 10 seats from the DUP.
When it stands alone against the rest of the Commons, it has 326 votes which is a majority of six. If Sinn Féin was to reverse its abstentionist policy, the government would still win crucial votes if all party members and the DUP voted with it.
The number of MPs who could vote would increase to 646, meaning a motion would pass with 324 votes.
May just has enough to win in such a scenario, but this also does not reflect the divisions within her own party.
The hardline Brexiteers don’t agree with the pro-EU section of the party, which has left the Prime Minister faced with a string of senior resignations from within her own Cabinet over the past week. It has also meant she’s faced opposition when it has come to getting key Brexit motions through.
Regardless of whether a Sinn Féin vote could swing a vote that would be more favourable for Ireland or not, its long-standing policy shows no signs of changing. Furthermore, it has long been a tactic of political opponents of Sinn Féin to attack this policy at various junctures.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One yesterday, Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill said that the votes of party MPs wouldn’t have made a bit of difference earlier this week.
“We have a British government that has spent the past two years in-fighting,” she said.
“If we boil these down, what we clearly have here is a British government in disarray and doesn’t know what it’s doing.
The numbers don’t stack up. It’s nonsense. We need to protect the island of Ireland’s interest… We need to make sure the backstop is the absolute bottom line… This will not be sorted out in the House of Commons or in Westminster.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Please join us. For the future of nursing and the healthcare system in Ireland.
@Marisa Tamburrini: the people missing critical appointments and early detection might not be here in the future.
@DavidOReilly: that is already the reality of Irish healthcare. I work in an area of cancer detection. We have thousands waiting for procedures. Staff shortages hugely impact these waiting times and outcomes.
@DavidOReilly: nor will the next generation of nurses unless they are paid fairly for the work they do that would shock any 9 to fiver into heart failure.
@Marisa Tamburrini: just how do we afford new nurses after you all get you 12% pay rise. Not to mention the demands that will trigger with the rest of the public service.
@DavidOReilly: You sir are an idiot, if you don’t/ can’t see that’s the reason the nurses are on strike in the first place! If the nurses get better pay & conditions then it’s a win win situation for us all!
@DavidOReilly: 1) pay restoration, not pay rise.
2) encourage Irish nurses home, fill vacant posts so wards can reopen thereby increasing procedure numbers and reducing wait times.
3) clauses 3 and 4 of the public service pay agreement limit rebound industrial action by other public sector workers as these points address the recruitment and retention issues in Nursing. Read it and educate yourself.
4) employ nurses in pre assessment clinics to prioritise urgent cases, provide patieny education which improves compliance and outcomes. Then address the colossal numbers of patients who do not attend for scheduled appointments.
5) I have a rally to attend. I’m campaigning for a better healthcare service that I hope you never need.
@Marisa Tamburrini: “Staff shortages hugely impact these waiting times and outcomes.”….did you every think that any pay rise you get will result in less staff because the money is going into wages and not extra staff?, does this Ann and Barry logic not register with you folks at all?……the PS in this country is WAY over paid already and thats not even getting into the pensions. It will sink us again the next meltdown is only a matter of time….
@Colette Kearns: before your contribution this was a reasonable polite post. Why do people think they can do online what they would not dream of doing in reality. Do you go around Calli g strangers on the street idiots?
@Peter Hughes: I agree…. the public service staff are well overpaid, however… a nurse or a midwife is not merely a public servant, they are highly trained professionals and deserve rights and salaries to reflect the work that has gone into getting them there.
I think to lump all PS staff under the one umbrella is inappropriate, indeed Minister Harris has ZERO qualifications and look at his wage and pension.
@DavidOReilly: do you think that 17.14 euro per hour is an appropriate wage for a midwife? My son (22) does static security part time and is getting 14.25….. took him just 2 days training…. a plumber after 6 years is averaging 21.45 per hour…. I know who I believe to be more
deserving
@Carol Uí Lionáin: Nurse actually start at 14.90 an hour.
@Marisa Tamburrini: fact check…claim is for parity with other healthcare professionals like physios. All have honors science degrees following four years of study and working for free.
Gardai get paid more, and are paid full salary though training to a pass degree. Pay restoration agreement applies to all in public service. This is about equal Pay which is paid in other countries and his was acknowledged by the pay commission which said it was outside their remit and should be looked at.
@Jack: what is fair pay
@Colette Kearns: where will the money come from higher taxes
@Valerie Judd: This claim you make is patently untrue. The nurses have consistently linked their pay claims with various issues from staff retention, to patient safety and you’ve now added linking it to parity with other grades.
As you’ve indicated nurses have a BSc degree, however not all will have an honours degree, and many of the grades they wish to have parity with are required to have masters degrees. While some nursing grades will also have masters degrees they are often sponsored by their employer, the HSE, and will automatically go up a grade, with a commensurate pay rise. This is an opportunity not open to everyone else.
@Colette Kearns: how is he
its a 12% pay rise
paye will rise to 48% for all to cover this
and a rise in paye to cover gold pensions
a joke this country
when things go bang in a few years who suffer then
@DavidOReilly: Your comment made me mad! But you’re correct & I apologize.
@DavidOReilly: stop looking for reactions, it’s pathetic!.. It is Pay restoration, not a rise they’re seeking, ie money that was taken from them in the last by the Irish government. It helps keep nurses and midwives who we crucially need. If you’ve ever been in the awful situation in life where you’re in the environment where these individuals work you’ll see how much they do and why they should be appreciated and paid accordingly. Stand with the nurses! Well done!
@Geraldine Fenton: Tax the banks , tax the billionaires, take the billions apple owe. Stop wasting money eg Irish water, the NCH. The list is endless!
@Colette Kearns: u are an even bigger idiot if you believe half that
@Marisa Tamburrini: you want parity with other graduates, that’s a pay rise, not restoration!
@Arch Angel: actually no , if you fact check you will see that while a lot of vox pops and mistaken media reports talk about restoration etc, the official inmo position is parity with allied health orofessionals who are required to have honors bachelor degrees.
Social workers and teachers who require a masters are paid on a higher level.
Basically there are pay bands for masters, bachelors and leaving cert grades in the public service, and nurses have remained on the leaving cert band and it takes them 20 years to reach a level that a Garda reaches in about 6.
Gardai, because they are paid through their training, are on the fifth incremental point at the stage that nurse and allied health professionals are only starting out so are better paid at each age level and their incremental progress is quicker.
This parity claim can be ring fenced if it is confined to the graduate parity claim, and let restoration wait with all other grades.
The references to safe staff levels is simply to the fact that because nurses are voting with their feet, and the system is carrying 1700 vacancies which it can’t fill, ratios are at a dangerous level.
Finally on the matter that not all nurses are Hons graduates, because that was not the system they trained under, there is plenty of precedent where ‘grandfathering’ applies, where the predecessors are deemed to have the qualification. Whether this is right or not is debateable.
The one fact is that our graduate nurses are leaving in droves because they don’t have equal pay or parity of esteem in the system and they are going to where they are appreciated… and of course where they can afford to live.
In any other business this would be a simple case of supply and demand and in our current situation price would increase, ie pay, to attract a sufficient supply, in particular for our city hospitals where cost of buying and even renting a home has become almost impossible.
Waiting lists cancellations all happened before the nurses strike . As a mother of a child with a chronic illness I spend hours in hospitals 3 nurses to 29 patients on night duty they don’t have time to pee
@Katy Tyrrell McCafferty: I honestly sympathise and have experienced similar. That said can you honestly say that giving the nurses all the money in the pot will do anything to improve this situation except to offer them remuneration at the expense of others.
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the nurses sign up to a deal in 2017, to run to 2020? How can they just walk away from it?
@Michael Fahy: yes. And are receiving 7.4% in it. A report was a part of this to investigate their issues. They don’t agree with it and are pulling plug early. The 12% claim is on top of this.
Labour Court would naturally take a very dim view of breaching agreements as it could cause chaos everywhere.
It’ll be interesting to see if public support for nurses presurises LRC to sets any precedent going forward.
@Michael Fahy: Re:
Recruitment and Retention
3.1.1. The Parties note that the Public Service Pay Commission stated in their Report, at Paragraph 6.35, that ‘consideration could be given to commissioning a more comprehensive examination of underlying difficulties in recruitment and retention in those sectors and employment streams where difficulties are clearly evident’
@Michael Fahy: that’s about pay restoration. This is an older issue about equal pay.
Busy night for coppers!
@ThatLJD: Humor attempt Fáil
Leo is about to meet his Waterloo
@Irish Genius: I doubt it, with Brexit about to land no one will be prepared to call an election. Now Harris on the other hand might be give the boot.
@Brian Jp Kelington: Not Simon “Everyone has full confidence in me” Harris?
100% support for nurses.
I should fully support the nurse’s but as someone with cystic fibrosis I have missed 2 appointments which were badly needed. On the other hand I have seen 2 nurses tend to 36 patients with 1 care assistant. In the special care unit in the Mater Hospital I have seen the nurses so run off their feet working over time that they nap on their break. They shouldn’t have to put up with this. This is no kind of job.
@Sabrina: I too have CF, received a letter yesterday for a scan in October this year…that i am waiting nearly 2 years for, 4th time is has been re-arranged due to staff shortages in the running of bone density and CAT scanners, I`m also waiting for an operation for the last 4 years, I get regular letters to see if i “still want it” it`s laughable at this stage.
it`s not the strike that`s causing the cancellations, they most likely would have happened anyway.
Cystic Fibrosis patients are very well looked after when we really need it, a bed will be found immediately should it be required – I can`t really fault it in general, we will be whipped in, in a heartbeat when we really need it, not everything is perfect, but we got to take the rough with the smooth.
I have seen MASSIVE changes in the over 50 years i have attended hospitals as either an inpatient/outpatient, and to be perfectly honest, i`m blown away at the attention to detail we are given compared to years ago.
@Pixie McMullen: you may be surprised to know that those letters asking ‘if you still want it’ come from nurses working as administrators ‘validating ‘ the waiting lists instead of being on the wards etc. That’s the real reason for our ‘nursing shortage’
The real issue here, as with most people is the level of taxation kicking in, taking nearly half of everything earned. Yet a lot of the TD’s supporting the nurses are the ones outraged with any support for higher rate cuts in budgets as if all those it applies to are somehow well off.
@Shayne O’Donoghue: Its more the cost of living, housing costs are out of control…..its pushing all this and the nurses know that after brexit we could be in basket case territory land again and nobody will be getting nothing.
The health service is dysfunctional left right and centre and it isn’t he nurses that are responsible. THEY have been holding the service together for a very long time and the rate of burn out as a result is huge. The cause of the dysfunction in my opinion is that there are too many pen pushers and not enough healthcare staff. Shifts are not ending on time due to staff shortages and the mountain of paperwork that needs attending to.
With 5 kids, 4 of whom have additional needs, I rely heavily upon the HSE and we have missed appointments as a result of of strike days but the blame lies at the feet of Varadkar and Harris…. and those that went before them… To improve the HSE WE need to improve staff morale and it starts with restoration of pay
@Carol Uí Lionáin:
“improve staff morale and it starts with restoration of pay”
I agree, however you’ve decided that only one group within the HSE should be paid this – at the expense of all others. How do you think every other person within the HSE is going to feel when told ‘sorry, but that deal you signed up to for 7% pay restoration, we can’t pay it because we had to give all the money to the nurses.”
The nurses signed up to the same deal, but broke it, the still want the benefits of it – including the 7%, and an additional 12% but are linking this to such things as patient care and staff retention. It’s a simple money grab, nothing more.
@Carol Uí Lionáin: who do you think the managers and administrators are???…………nurses!
@Ciaran Bolger: I agree,nurse managers counting staffing numbers in different wards,but getting good salaries for keeping within budget.
@Ciaran Bolger: I agree,nurse managers counting staffing numbers on the wards,but getting good salaries for keeping within budget.
over 100,000 marching and the media are not reporting about it… sime saying a few thousand. typical irish media… disgraceful
I notice the government has focused all their spin in the media towards the hospital and have done their best to ignore the nurses strike. The nurses need All of our support. A country without supportive health care is one that people leave. That should figure into their business bottom dollar somewhere.
have your say