AN “IMMEDIATE and short” byelection campaign in Donegal South West is necessary to quickly address the findings of the High Court judgment, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan has told the Dáil.
Announcing a three-week campaign, with the election on November 25th, Ms Coughlan said the Government was appealing the judgment that there was an unreasonable delay in holding the byelection to the Supreme Court because they and all TDs should not “accept that it is a matter for the courts, rather than the Oireachtas, to decide when by-elections should be held”.
She insisted “the Government, like other litigants before the courts, is fully entitled to await the determination of the matter by appeal”.
The Tánaiste, and TD for Donegal South West, said the Government’s attention has been fully directed at budgetary matters. The people of that constituency must make their judgment on which party is putting the national interest above that of short-term political populism.
She pointed to the four-year budgetary “correction” of €15 billion, describing it as an enormous challenge, requiring considerable political leadership. At stake, is the very economic independence that, as a nation, “we fought so hard for”, she said.
“The people of Donegal are more interested in solutions than in the blame game.”
Fine Gael justice spokesman Alan Shatter claimed the Government was trying to misuse the courts at taxpayers’ expense by making a “frivolous, vexatious and unnecessary application”.
There was “no justifiable, credible basis for an appeal to the Supreme Court. To travel that route is to waste taxpayers’ money,” he said.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the Tánaiste did not utter one sentence to explain why the byelections are not being held in the other three constituencies.
“The only reason the other three byelections are not being held is political.
“It is about keeping this clapped-out Government in office, a Government which, the Taoiseach maintains, derives its authority from having a majority in the House.”
Labour environment spokesman Ciarán Lynch asked how much the High Court case cost the Government.
Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Cáoláin said the issue “is not about a Government limping to get across the finish line of a budget vote on December 7th.
“This is about the future of Ireland in the next five, 10, 15 and 20 years.”
He added that “the Greens may now present themselves as the watchdogs who got Fianna Fáil to abide by the court decision. What does that say about Fianna Fáil and the Greens who failed to press for the holding of the byelections and voted against the moving of the writ in Donegal South West on no less than three occasions?”
