THE NEW Government Chief Whip, Pat Carey, narrowly avoided a major political embarrassment last night when the Government side was almost defeated in a Dáil vote.
The vote is a standard one taken each week at the end of the two-day private members’ debate.
But at 8.30pm when the vote was being taken on the Labour Party’s private members’ motion on the performance of the economy, it looked for a while as if the Government might be defeated because it might not be able to muster enough TDs.
The Government has a working majority of 12 of the 165 voting TDs in the Dáil – the 166th is the Ceann Comhairle, John O’Donoghue.
But last night, amid a great deal of confusion, the Government side scraped through in the end with 65 votes to 62, a majority of only three. Initially it seemed that it had won by only two votes when the electronic count was taken. But whips from all parties agreed that one of the Opposition TDs had been double-counted on the electronic system.
Mr Carey has only been in the position for a week after having been promoted by Taoiseach Brian Cowen.
Last night the Labour Party said that it seemed that the crisis had been caused by some nine Fianna Fáil TDs being “absent without leave”.
But Mr Carey told The Irish Times that the situation had been created because of a misunderstanding with Fine Gael.
He said it was his understanding that he had a pair arrangement (whereby absent TDs from the Government and Opposition parties are paired against each other) with Fine Gael to cover a number of senior Ministers who were attending Lisbon Treaty events. The agreement had been made with Fine Gael whip Paul Kehoe.
However, Mr Kehoe had to be absent from the Dáil yesterday evening and those deputising for him did not seem to be aware of the arrangement, said Mr Carey.
“It was a misunderstanding. I will be meeting with Fine Gael to clarify the situation. I am also sure that this situation will not happen again,” he said.
But Labour’s whip, Emmet Stagg, whose party tabled the motion, said that his party had paired off two of its TDs and it seemed to him that some Fianna Fáil TDs had not showed up for the vote.
“They should have a margin of 12, so that means that nine of their TDs were missing tonight. In military terms, they were absent without leave,” Mr Stagg said.