Very heavy fare in Dáil Éireann on Wednesday.
A sombre Leaders’ Questions focused on medical matters of the most serious concern. The session was sandwiched between two lengthy and downbeat debates contemplating the scary future thrown up by Trump’s tariff mayhem.
It’s at cheerless times like these, when the Dáil takes a despondent turn, that we are glad to have the Social Democrats around to shine their trademark brightness on proceedings.
Really? The Soc – Serious Politics with a Bang of Sanctimony – Dems? As political outfits go, they’re hardly laugh-a-minute.
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But fair play to their stand-in leader, Cian O’Callaghan, for giving everyone a much-needed giggle when a message he sent on Tuesday about the numerical strength of his party in the Dáil started doing the rounds.
In it, Cian is clasping banished TD Eoin Hayes to the Soc Dem bosom for the purpose of claiming a prized committee chair for the party.
Never mind that they kicked him out of the ranks before Christmas for telling porkies about when he ditched shares in a company which does business with the Israel Defense Forces.
Eoin is useful to them now. So, to win a turf war with Labour over which party will have most committee chairs, the deputy for Dublin Bay South is now the Soc Dems prodigal son. For accounting purposes only.
This means Cian and Co can now kill the fatted committee calf and give one in the eye to Labour in the process. Michael Lowry will surely be doffing his cap to them.
After the General Election, both parties had 11 TDs. However, in the complicated final shake-out of the count results, the Social Democrats bagged their last seat first, thus entitling them to two committee chairs and leaving Labour with just one. Or something like that.
But then, when the party made Eoin persona non grata and banished him indefinitely to the deep tundra on the chamber’s edge beside fellow independents Barry Heneghan and Danny Healy-Rae, Labour presumed it would get the two committee chairs because its parliamentary party was now the bigger one.
Stood to reason – an independent TD can’t represent a political party in the Dáil simultaneously. And Eoin is currently an independent. He sits among the independents, and he votes as an independent, and he is a member of that controversial new technical group of independents known as the “De Udders”.
Parties covet committee chairs. They are prestigious and high-profile positions, and each one comes with a tasty 10 grand salary supplement for the lucky incumbent.
These most desirable of Dáil jobs will be officially allocated to the political parties and groupings today after a meeting of the business committee.
With prestige positions at stake, Cian O’Callaghan outlined his party’s position to the Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan in an email on Tuesday.
He said that following last week’s meeting of the business committee, Finnegan drew his attention to the rules governing the make-up of groups in the Dáil. Cian wrote to him confirming that “there has been no change since the election of November 2024 in the number of Social Democrat TDs elected to the Dáil. There were 11 Social Democrat TDs elected to this Dail and, not withstanding internal disciplinary measures, there remain 11 Social Democrat TDs in our party”.
Not withstanding the fact that number 11 is currently togging out for a different team, at the party’s request.
“I don’t know if that is what’s called ‘mental reservation’, but it’s definitely mental,” smirked one Government backbencher on Wednesday. “What about all the commotion and holier-than-thou carry on from them when the Government-supporting independent TDs wanted to be classed as independents in Opposition?”
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy put the kibosh on that caper. She ruled that they cannot be classed as sole traders. So the Government had to create a quasi-opposition category for them – De Udders.
And in a piquant twist to this latest bout of procedural gymnastics in the Dáil, Verona was the one whose job it was to decide whether outcast Eoin can be counted in, even if he doesn’t want to be, and even though he is out.
Labour TDs professed themselves gobsmacked by the move, maintaining they are more amused than miffed by what they see as a Soc Dems stroke. But they were trying to remain aloof – at least in the open.
Party whip Duncan Smith says it’s all very odd.
“We spent the last two and a half months debating whether people can be in government and opposition at the same time. The Ceann ruled on it and they can’t. The same principle applies here: you can’t be in a party and be independent at the same time.”
He thinks it’s a bit rich. “You can’t be included in the numbers privately to gain parliamentary advantage but not be included publicly because there might be political disadvantage.”
The Oireachtas Committee on Dáil Reform met on Wednesday to discuss the issue, and ruled in favour of the Soc Dems.
“So you can be a member of the Soc Dems and not a member of the Soc Dems at the same time,” quipped Fianna Fáil’s Malcolm Byrne after the news broke.
But Labour won’t be protesting the decision. In the general scheme of things, it doesn’t matter a whit.
The world is in a state of chassis. Who cares about a few aul committee chairs? Outside of Leinster House, nobody does.
But at least the Social Democrats performed a very valuable social service cheering everyone up by showing their party is as imperfect as the rest when shiny stuff is up for grabs.
“So the party that hollered for months that you couldn’t be in opposition and government at the same time now wants us to believe that you can be in a party and out of a party at the same time. Get off the stage!” chortled our happy Government backbencher, grateful for some light relief in a doom-laden Dail day.
But where does this leave Eoin Hayes? Back in the fold, or returned to Barry and Danny in the wilderness?
