Byelection writs to be moved in first 'quarter of 2011'

WRITS FOR the three byelections in Dublin South, Waterford and Donegal South West will be moved “in the first quarter of 201l”, Government Chief Whip John Curran has told the Dáil.

The polls would take place between 18 and 25 days of the moving of the writ, Mr Curran said. The Government had a comfortable four-vote majority against the Fine Gael motion that all three outstanding byelections be held immediately.

The vote remained the same for each of the three byelections at 81 to 77, with former Government supporter Independent Noel Grealish (Galway West) voting with the Opposition. Former Fianna Fáil TD Joe Behan also voted with the Opposition while Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn honoured the pairing agreement that allowed Tánaiste Mary Coughlan to travel to the US, by abstaining.

Mr Curran was the only member of the Government benches in the chamber for the 20-minute debate. He told the Opposition that “to divert attention and energy to the holding of the three byelections could be detrimental to the health of our economy”.

Referring to the High Court case instituted by Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty to force the holding of the Donegal byelection, Mr Curran said the Government believed not holding the byelection did not violate the Constitution. Article 16.7 provides that election for the Dáil “shall be regulated in accordance with law”, he said.

He stressed that Mr Doherty had brought the case to the courts and “now the case has occurred the Government must defend the case” because it gave rise to important constitutional issues on the separation of powers.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that by failing to hold the byelections, the Government was running scared and denying democracy. “It is a double standard that offends the very nature of our Irishness, our Republic, our possession of our own democracy.”

He said “it is the ultimate duplicity by a desperate, terror-stricken, power-mad Government who are too scared of their own people to ask their opinion”.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said that never before in the State’s history had there been a deliberate policy by a government that each vacancy in the Dáil should be left unfilled for a prolonged period. “It is simply not acceptable for vacancies in the membership of this House to be left unfilled for such a long period of time.”

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin accused the Government “of acting without a mandate and denying democracy to the people in three constituencies and to the people of the State as a whole”.