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THE CEANN COMHAIRLE took to his feet during Leaders’ Questions today to threaten to suspend the Dáil after a heated exchange between Micheál Martin and Pearse Doherty saw the Sinn Féin TD accuse Martin of voting “to make people homeless”.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl said that people watching would be “disgusted” at the behaviour on show in the Dáil chamber, which he called “intolerable”.
Ó Fearghaíl’s intervention came after Doherty read out a series of stories from people who are worried about their future after the eviction ban is lifted later this week.
“Julian is from Dublin: myself and my kids are going to be homeless in April. With no family to rely on. We can’t get any help or accommodation to stay anywhere safe to stay.
“Thomas: my landlord is selling up and get my wife and I noticed at the start of the year, it’s impossible to find anywhere,” Doherty said.
Things escalated after Doherty proceeded to tell Martin, “you made this decision, not anybody else,” and called on him to extend the eviction ban. Martin responded in turn by telling Doherty: “You proposed to do the very same thing on Christmas week”.
Doherty, who was clearly annoyed by the remark, said: “Not a chance, you are a disgrace, you stand there misleading the Dáil every single time,” as the Ceann Comhairle began to call for order.
“I am not going to say the procedures of the hosts subverted. People are entitled to speak. You’re entitled to make your point and you’ve made it very strongly. The Tánaiste is entitled to respond,” Ó Fearghaíl said.
Ceann Comhairle threatens to suspend Dáil amid shouting, says public would be 'disgusted' with scenes https://t.co/rtZVClYAO9 pic.twitter.com/BKLRQVOIUB
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) March 30, 2023
Martin then chimed in, saying: “I think Sinn Féin’s tolerance for free debate has always been one that has been questioned over the years.”
Doherty then shouted across the chamber :”on a point of order, I wasn’t the person who had to go to the High Court”, and that he had not subverted “democracy”.
This was an apparent reference to Doherty’s 2010 High Court case which forced the Fianna Fail government to hold a by-election in Donegal.
Ó Fearghaíl then threatened to suspend the Dáil is order was not restored.
“‘I’m on my feet, persist with this and I will suspend the house, I’m not going to tolerate this,” he said.
Martin then said he had been “shouted down repeatedly” and that it was a “tactic”.
“Where are they going to go, where are they going to go,” Doherty called to him from across the floor.
There were shouts of “no answers” from Sinn Féin’s benches.
“Absolutely intolerable,” Ó Fearghaíl said, before restating the rules for speakers in the Dáil, and handing the floor over to Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns.
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Biggest laugh of the week is Darragh O’Brien reassuring American bussiness leaders that the government is solving the housing crisis. April 1st isn’t until Saturday dude. Should be ashamed of themselves. Then again, politicians don’t do shame
Tbh I hate the carry on with shouting and childish behaviour but they’re all at it. What I’m disgusted about is the lack of urgency those in power have at fixing this crisis. Whoever you vote for these lot are not the answer.
@Gareth Wogan:
Lack of urgency? you mean lack of honesty
When can the public partake in a vote of no confidence in this shambles of a government?
@Toon Army: we have these things called elections…
@declan hassett: The only problem being they are 5 years apart!. The public should have the right to get rid of a government if they are failing to serve the people.
@Andrew Harrington: you have the right every 5 years.
He’s really struggling to keep the crèche under control. he’s always been out of his depth in that role.
“Would be disgusted” Most of us are disgusted
@GreenFlag:
Reminds me of the late Robin Williams movie MAN OF THE YEAR where a comedian runs for president and as you can imagine Robin Williams in a debate is a free for all so the moderator tries to calm him down ..
oh don’t make a mockery of our democratic process!!!!
it was a mockery long before i got here ..
.
They’ll all be drinking subsidised pints and gins in the Dail bar now. Fair play to them.
Disgusted by the way the majority of them have voted in the past week and the callousness towards homelessness. Don’t particularly care who is having a shouting match in the Dail.
@Rochelle Hart:
there are too many people in ireland
Michael Martin has a home to go to. Pearse Doherty has a home to go to. One man’s in government the other man is not. The man not in government is asking the man in government who appalled the promotion of the evictions on 1/4/2033 “where are these people going to go?”.
Tha Tha the man in government Michael Martin has no answer and turns to personal attacks on the other man Pearse Doherty. Sure didn’t Barry Cowen yesterday state that keeping the eviction ban in place was like giving sweets to children.
That’s Finna Fail for you, greedy arrogant toothless government politicians who do any thing for power. Very like Leo and Fine Gael.
Next election think before you vote and remember all the homeless children
@Liam Foy:
pearse celebrates IRA cowards who murdered women and children then he cries for the homeless
And so we are left with very little choice.. No one in the government has earned our admiration. What a sad situation.
Let’s stop all this nonsense now. The opposition want the eviction ban extended for another 6 months… so ok give it to them but in 6 months time that’s it . Its open season. If a landlord wants to sell , let him sell. And I’m am convinced that if the present government is overthrown in the morning and replaced by all the opposition parties we will still be he in 2/3 years time discussing the housing crisis and the new government (todays opposition) will be telling us , its not our fault , we inherited it from FFG/Greens… because if they could guarantee me that they have a plan at the moment to have this crisis resolved in 2/3 years time I would vote them in tomorrow
@Michael Costello: the facts are though that there is no 2/3 year fix. The housing crisis is 30 years in the making and unfortunately the solutions will not solve the problem for 10 years I’d suggest. It certainly will not be solved in the lifetime of this government or the next.
@NotMyIreland: sadly I would have to agree with you but I would love , probably like the rest of us some serious movements could get started in the couple of years.
@Michael Costello: yeah agree there. We need to see some genuine turning points on some of the issues at the root cause of the crisis. All elected officials should be working together on this emergency rather than acting the way they are with cheap political point scoring and these silly irrelevant same old arguments taking up Dail time needs to be cut out. If you watch the Dail live you would be left wondering is it even worth voting at all, they all seem so self serving.
@Michael Costello: social housing has been starved of funding by FFGL for almost 20 years. You expect it resolved in 2/3? I expect to see inroads to proper funding and policies to rectify those 2 decades of neglect and new builds progressing, but 2/3 years is never gonna sort it out.
Is that what we are paying our taxed for
Sinn Fein making a difficult problem sound simple, it’s not. many competing rights going on. Every developed country has a housing problem. Many issues are societal, broken families, single households, migrants from EU and further afield. Think back to 5s where people lived with parents, got married, some put their name down for a house in Ballyfermot, Drimnagh etc. That was the only way for most.
Many of the large social housing development s had difficult social issues which they forget. It was not until the 70s that real possibilities of owning homes of your own extended to so many.
It’s NOT a simple problem, SinnFein are just using it to soften up electorate to gain power.
I don’t hear or see any policies in Detail from them. Their main aim is to be in Power to drive a United Ireland, every thing else is much further down the pecking order.
They are agresdive in this and don’t want to work for the good of all.
@Ann owens:
anything to deflect their IRA friends
Children’s playtime
We’re way past disgusted fella!
We’ve been disgusted for quite a while
Ceann Comhairle is full of his own importance he thinks he has the answer to everything and he is has an arrogance attitude one of the gang.
If this was in Russia we’d have loads to say
@trebloc01: listening to Danny healy really bawling his head is like a comedy show, what a gombeen, they are all the same,
@Murf:
when he was sworn in as a TD
business interests etc
he never wrote down he owned a pub
he “forgot” to mention it
had the Ceann Comhairle provided a character reference for Joseph Dempsey
the public would be ‘disgusted’
have your say