Sinn Féin to chair Oireachtas justice and defence committees

Sinn Féin is to take the chair’s position on seven Oireachtas committees, including the justice and defence panels, with Government parties taking the positions on the committees on housing and infrastructure.

The allocation of committee chair positions to different political parties and Dáil groupings was agreed at a behind-closed-doors meeting on Thursday morning.

The Government parties’ top picks were the Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery, while Sinn Féin’s first two picks were the Finance Committee and Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.

Mary Lou McDonald’s party will also chair the powerful Dáil Public Accounts Committee, which is the convention as it is the largest party of opposition. Sinn Féin will also chair four other committees.

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Chair positions are chosen by parties using the complex D’Hondt system, which allocates a certain number of positions to them according to their Dáil representation.

The largest parties or groupings – being the Government parties, who act jointly, and Sinn Féin – pick their preferred posts for the first 10 of 28 Oireachtas committees, before smaller groupings come in, with all then choosing in a rotation until the positions are allocated.

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A Government source said that for the purposes of committee chair positions, the Regional Independent Group is not large enough to receive an allocation under the system. The source indicated that they may not be formally entitled to do so anyway under a ruling by the Ceann Comhairle that they were not to be recognised as a technical group.

The source said the members of the original RIG who are not ministers will not be given committee chair positions from the Government allocation.

The Social Democrats will chair the Health Committee, while Labour will chair the Arts, Media and Culture committee.

The Independent and Parties Technical Group – composed of the three PBP-Solidarity TDs and Independents Seamus Healy, Brian Stanley and Catherine Connolly, alongside Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman and Charles Ward of the 100 per cent Redress Party – will chair the Committee on the Irish Language.

A TD from the Independent Technical Group will chair the Budgetary Oversight committee. That group is composed of the three Independent Ireland TDs, Dublin Mid-West Independent Paul Gogarty and the two Aontú TDs.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are to decide between themselves which of them takes which chair position out of the Government’s allocation.

Committee chair positions come with an extra payment of €10,888 annually.

Oireachtas committees will not be up and running for another month under an indicative timeline drawn up by the Houses of the Oireachtas and circulated to politicians earlier this week.

Committee chairs are due to be appointed by the Dáil on May 7th.

The full list of committee chair positions, and the order they were chosen in by the parties and groups, is as follows:

Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery: Government

Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Government

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitisalisation, and Taoiseach: Sinn Féin

Committee on Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Government

Committee on European Affairs: Government

Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Sinn Féin

Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Government

Committee on Education and Youth: Government

Committee of Public Accounts: Sinn Féin

Committee on Transport: Government