Election 2024Q&A

Who is in government now, when does the new one start and what happens to losing TDs?

The earliest we can expect negotiations about the formation of the next government to conclude is mid-January

Election 2024
Labour leader Ivana Bacik has consistently said she would first talk to other parties on the centre-left about a common left-wing platform that might then negotiate with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Pat Leahy's picture
Pat Leahy
Tue Dec 03 2024 - 06:04

The final counts in the general election have finished. So we now know the overall make-up of the new Dáil and the 174 new TDs. It is likely that the parties will gather their new intake of TDs for parliamentary party meetings before the 34th Dáil meets for the first time on the afternoon of December 18th.

There will be much chat about coalition in the coming days. Sinn Féin is making noises about talking to other left-wing parties about an alternative government but as everyone involved is able to count, it knows that this is not going anywhere. The minimum number of TDs required to form a coalition is 88 – the majority is half of 174 plus one – and the extent of what’s possible in this phase is defined by the numbers. So the only coalition game in town will be based on the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael combination.

Will we get a new government on December 18th?

No. Nobody is in any great hurry. It takes time to put together a government. Preliminary contacts will scope out who is prepared to enter negotiations, and then there will be a period of wrangling over a programme for government, who gets what appointments, and so on. The earliest you can expect the process to conclude is mid-January, with late January or even into February probably more likely.

But don’t we need a government after December 18th?

We do, and we will have one. There is never not a government; the State must have an executive to lead it. So just as Ministers have continued in office after the Dáil was dissolved, the Constitution specifies that they remain in office until their successors are appointed. That will not happen until the new Dáil votes for a new taoiseach, and that in turn will not happen until a coalition deal has been agreed by parties that can muster a majority in the Dáil.

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What about TDs who have lost their seats?

There is currently no Dáil in existence and hasn’t been since it was dissolved by the President back on November 8th. But the Ministers have continued in office and they will continue to serve as Ministers until their successors take over.

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Does that mean that the Green Party is still in government?

It does. And Fianna Fáil’s Stephen Donnelly is still Minister for Health, even though he lost his Dáil seat in Wicklow in the election. And Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys is still Minister for Social Protection, even though she didn’t stand again in the election. The convention now is that the “caretaker” government does not implement any new policies or embark on any new initiatives during this period. But that is just a convention, not a legal rule. During the period between the February 2020 general election and coming into office of the new government in June 2020, the Fine Gael minority “caretaker” government introduced the first Covid lockdown and spent billions of euro of exchequer funding for businesses and workers. The outgoing government retains all the powers of its office, though it will be accountable to the new Dáil in the conventional way once that meets.

So what’s the likely line-up of the next government?

That’s the big question. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would like to explore a possible coalition deal with the Labour Party, but Labour – contemplating the fate of their previous partners in the Green Party and the collapse in its vote – are conspicuously unenthusiastic. Labour leader Ivana Bacik has consistently said that she would first talk to other parties on the centre-left, especially the Social Democrats, about a common left-wing platform that might then negotiate with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as a single block. The Social Democrats, for their part, sound even less enthusiastic about the prospect of government with the big two parties. But that process on the left will take a bit of time.

Meanwhile, Independent TDs of various stripes are queuing up to advertise their willingness to support a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil government. Some may be content to support such a coalition from the outside, but others may want to come into the government and occupy ministerial office. It’s not clear whether that would be acceptable to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It may depend on how many Independents the big two need. At present they could be just two seats away from a Dáil majority, or they could be more. We shall see. But probably not quickly.