THE GOVERNMENT suffered another blow to its authority last night with the defection of a second Fianna Fáil TD on a Budget-related issue.
Donegal Fianna Fáil TD and former Cabinet minister Dr Jim McDaid defied his party whip and abstained on a Fine Gael motion calling for the Government to reverse its decision to postpone a cervical cancer vaccination programme for young women.
Following the resignation of Wicklow TD Joe Behan from Fianna Fáil over the medical cards issue, along with loss of support from Independent TD Finian McGrath, the Government's comfortable majority of 12 has been seriously eroded over the past month.
Dr McDaid told the Dáil last night that even though these were difficult economic times, the withdrawal of a life-saving vaccine was not a move he could support.
"We will pass a death sentence on a certain percentage of the 12-year-old girls whose parents cannot afford the cost of it.
"Is there anyone in this House who would not give the vaccine to their daughters today?" asked Dr McDaid.
He added that he had been a friend of Minister for Health Mary Harney for 20 years but he could not see the logic of her decision.
"Fifty years from now, it will not be important what my bank account was, what type or car I drove or what size of house I lived in.
"It does matter to me that during my stay in this House I may have been, just may have been, important in the life of a child.
"Accordingly, I cannot vote for the Government's motion this evening," said Dr McDaid.
"I fully realise the implications of this but I trust that my colleagues understand that, while I will abstain, I will not vote per se against them. I cannot vote against an oath I took 34 years ago."
Dr McDaid's decision to abstain means he will be automatically expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.
However, he will still remain a member of the organisation and is likely to be accepted back in the long term if he supports the Government in future Dáil divisions.
However, with further significant cuts in public spending looking inevitable next year due to the continuing decline in tax revenues, the capacity of the Coalition to serve its full term until 2012 is now in serous doubt.
The Government won the first of last night's Dáil division by 76 votes to 66.
Mr Behan surprisingly backed the Coalition along with the six Green Party and two Independent TDs, Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry. However, Labour chief whip Emmet Stagg maintained that the decision by Dr McDaid to abstain represented just the latest challenge to the authority of the Taoiseach and the credibility of the Minister for Health. "Just six months after the election of a new Taoiseach, this Government, staggering from crisis to crisis and gaffe to gaffe, is looking increasingly ragged and battered," said Mr Stagg.
