Speaking time allocation for EU official in Dáil ‘a once off’

Dáil Éireann will depart from the contentious arrangement for sharing time for speeches when the head of the EU’s negotiating team on Brexit Michel Barnier addresses the Chamber tomorrow.

However, the Business Committee which determines the running order of the Dáil has been assured it is a once-off and is not part of a wider move by larger parties to reverse rules on speaking arrangements and slots agreed last year.

Under the agreement, reached by whips this week, Fine Gael will get 12 minutes of speaking time; Fianna Fáil will get 10 minutes; Sinn Féin will get 8 minutes; with other parties and groups being given slots of between two and three minutes.

Usually there would not be such a big distinction between the allowable speaking time for smaller and larger parties. However, these plans brought forward by the chair of the business committee, Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, were proposed because Mr Barnier’s schedule was changed, and his attendance was reduced to 90 minutes.

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Under those circumstances, it was argued that a proportional arrangement be put in place. The appearance of Mr Barnier is described as an “exchange of views”, whereas the format will see him deliver an address, followed by statements by party representatives.

Following the indecisive result of the election in February 2016, one of the new arrangements was that smaller recognised groups in the Dáil were entitled to speaking slots in major debates that were disproportionately long compared to their numbers.

This arrangement was agreed during the period between the election and when the Government was formed, where there was great uncertainty over what kind of administration would emerge.

The upshot has been that smaller groups get proportionately longer speaking slots, a development that has give rise to complaints from the larger parties. Backbenchers from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have complained about a lack of speaking time compared to Deputies from small groups and micro parties.

There are moves afoot by the larger parties to reverse this decision and return to the model used in previous Dáil terms. However, Fianna Fáil whip Michael Moynihan told The Irish Times that the change in this instance was to accommodate the particular circumstances of Mr Barnier’s attendance, and nothing else could be read from it.

The whip of the Solidarity-People Before Profit Alliance Richard Boyd-Barrett said that he had accepted this arrangement as a once-off and had not made an issue of it.

“However, if it were the case that this was a Trojan horse for a wider move by the big parties to take time away from us, we will resist that and resist it very strongly,” he said.