The Green Party has warned its councillors that comments by some of them to The Irish Timeshave jeopardised the prospect of getting two Seanad seats from Fianna Fáil. Councillors have been instructed to say nothing to the media about the Seanad election until the issue is resolved.
"The Green Party is calling a media blackout regarding the Seanad election until this matter has been resolved internally," stated an e-mail sent by the party leadership to its councillors.
"The press office is under instructions neither to confirm nor deny that there is a voting deal with Fianna Fáil and I understand that the Fianna Fáil press office is under similar instruction. I hope that this blackout will be observed in the party as keenly as the blackout during negotiations for government," said the message from the party's Dáil administrator, Colm Ó Caomhánaigh.
"The public comments have made it very difficult for us to get more information from Fianna Fáil on what they are hoping to get from us in terms of votes because they are justifiably concerned that they will read it all in The Irish Times the next day," said the message.
It added that the party would not try to monitor how councillors voted, as this was not allowed under law, and councillors had been informed of this in an e-mail on July 3th.
"Despite this, three councillors have been reported in the national media as claiming that we are still trying to do this. These public comments are putting our prospects of getting the two Seanad seats in serious jeopardy. The matter can be and should be dealt with internally. If at the end of the process individuals are still unhappy they may claim some justification in going public but we are not at the end of the process and the matter is being dealt with.
"In particular, comments from councillors that they will vote for Fianna Fáil councillors of their own choice will completely undermine the deal."
Mr O Caomhánaigh went on to say that an aspect of the matter of which councillors were probably unaware was that resources for all the parties in Leinster House were calculated on the basis of the number of Oireachtas members they had who did not hold ministerial office.
"Three of our TDs now hold ministerial office, leaving three others. So our resources may be cut in half unless we get these Seanad seats. By resources I mean staff and office space. It is important that everyone appreciates the full implications of this deal falling apart. Obviously this is a sensitive point, especially for members of staff, so please treat this information as confidential."
He went on to say that he was on leave this week and was handing over responsibility for the issue to Dan Boyle.