Department of Finance secretary general, Kevin Cardiff, is set to finally take a seat on Europe's audit body after the European Parliament today took the unprecedented step of overturning a recommendation by its own budget committee.
The vote for nominations to the Court of Auditors took place at 11.25am (Irish time) when 521 MEPs voted in favour of nominating Mr Cardiff while 128 voted against. 34 abstained.
The MEPs voted against a report by the parliament's Budget Committee, which suggested rejecting Mr Cardiff. It is the first time that this has happened.
Although a committee of MEPs rejected Mr Cardiff's nomination to the European Court of Auditors three weeks ago, the centre-right, socialist and liberal groups decided yesterday to overturn the committee's recommendation at today's plenary session in Strasbourg.
Mr Cardiff's nomination to the €276,000-a-year post was defeated by one vote at the budgetary control committee after a hearing in which he was questioned about the department's role in the financial crisis.
Only afterwards did it emerge that the outgoing Irish member of the court, Eoin O'Shea, had sent emails disparaging Mr Cardiff to key members of committee. The disclosure of this intervention turned the debate in Mr Cardiff's favour, said a number of parliamentary sources.
The European People's Party, the Socialist and Democrat group and the Alliance of Liberals command a combined 547 votes in the 753-seat parliament. The vote was by a secret ballot but the groups say yesterday that their MEPs would back Mr Cardiff.
A spokeswoman for the EPP – Fine Gael's affiliate and the dominant group in the parliament with 272 seats – said the decision was unanimous. "We expect all EPP MEPs to follow the group line."
While Taoiseach Enda Kenny lobbied EPP leader Joseph Daul to ensure the EPP's support for his nominee, some of the most pointed questioning of Mr Cardiff came from within the group. After the hearing a leading EPP committee member sent him a technical questionnaire "and he answered that satisfactorily", said Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell.
Citing the "quality of the candidate" primarily, Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa said all but two of the 190 Socialist MEPs backed the decision to endorse Mr Cardiff. A liberal group spokesman indicated its 85 MEPs had also decided to back him.