Galway West poll-topper only rules out formal Coalition
By Stephen Corrigan
Galway West poll-topper Éamon Ó Cuív gave the clearest indication yet that he would be prepared to support a Fine Gael-led minority government, following his election on Sunday morning.
According to Deputy Ó Cuív, the government has been thrown out and for Fianna Fáil to enter coalition with them would be defiant of voter’s wishes.
But he did concede that the country needed a stable government and that all options should be considered.
“We have to make sure there is a functioning Dáil, but on the other hand, I think there are many ways of dealing with that – that are much more constructive for Irish politics,” he explained.
He believed that the inconclusive result of last Friday’s General Election could lead to an altogether more open and transparent form of governance in Ireland.
“It could likely happen that we won’t elect a Taoiseach the first day, and if it failed us to elect a Taoiseach, we could facilitate the election of a Taoiseach on a one-off basis and we could then say we’ll take it issue by issue, but you’re going to have to totally reform how the Dáil works,” he said.
Discussing the prospect of having to get a 60 per cent consensus on every finance bill, the Cornamona poll-topper said that this would allow for informed debate and give all members of the Dáil the opportunity to have an input.
“Instead of just announcing the budget on budget day, you’re going to have to go into proposals and committees and you’re going to have to get agreement on those in an intuitive time rather than this big bang announcement on budget day which is a throwback to nineteenth century Britain,” said Deputy Ó Cuív.
He added, “That would be a very novel and new way of doing things, but it might be a hell of a lot better than the system we have had up to now.”
This would seem to support the idea of the so-called ‘Tallaght Strategy’, used by Alan Dukes as leader of Fine Gael, to support the Fianna Fáil minority government from 1987 and 1989.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.