It is 19 days after the general election and the 174 TDs of the 34th Dáil will take up their seats in Leinster House this morning.
Some 64 of their number are new TDs and the Oireachtas website has a helpful guide for them.
“The first sitting day of a new Dáil will be a very busy day”, it says going on to explain how their names will all be read out, how there will be the election of a ceann comhairle and the nomination and election of a Taoiseach.
Well, actually with the process of Government formation proceeding at something of a snail’s pace so far, there is no expectation that a Taoiseach will be nominated and elected today.
That does not mean that there will be no action however as the election of a ceann comhairle is the most dramatic race of its kind for years.
The favourite to take the prestigious role is Wexford Independent TD Verona Murphy who will be the first women to hold the job if she is successfully elected.
Her nomination is tangled up in the Government formation process with the Regional Group of Independents – members of which are considered most likely to help Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to a Dáil majority – seeking the support of the two big parties for Ms Murphy.
While the two party’s leaders cannot guarantee all of their members will vote for Ms Murphy given that the election is by secret ballot, both Tánaiste Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Taoiseach Simon Harris recommended on Tuesday that their TDs back her in today’s election.
As we report in our lead story this request from the two leaders came despite their previous sharp criticisms of controversial comments she made linking migrants to Islamic State (Isis) during her first election bid in 2019.
Ms Murphy apologised for the remarks and later went on to be elected to the Dáil as an Independent in 2020.
During the byelection campaign, Mr Martin said Ms Murphy’s comments were “offensive and quite dangerous as they have no basis in fact whatsoever”.
After being dropped by Fine Gael ahead of the 2020 general election, Mr Harris, then the minister for health, said: “I think that anybody who engages in stoking what I believe to be unfounded racist fears has no place in the Fine Gael party.”
Asked about his previous comments this week and the possibility that he would ask his party to back Ms Murphy to be ceann comhairle, Mr Harris said his party and Fianna Fáil were working to see how they could form a “stable government”.
He added: “Deputy Murphy is not a member of the Fine Gael party for very good reason but Deputy Murphy then went off and got elected to Dáil Éireann with a mandate from the people of Wexford and I have to respect that reality as well.”
He said there would be no whip applied to Fine Gael TDs for what would be “a private ballot”.
While Ms Murphy is likely to be elected it will be interesting - given the secret ballot - to see how close it is.
There are two Fianna Fáil candidates in the field, outgoing two-term Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl and veteran Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness.
The other candidate for the position is the Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South-Central, Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
In a series of interviews on Tuesday, Mr Ó Fearghaíl argued it was “not right” to use the position of ceann comhairle as a bargaining chip in government negotiations.
It will also be interesting to see what impact Ms Murphy’s expected election has on the Government formation process.
Talks have been ongoing between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Independents, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats, although the latter two are viewed as being less open to entering government.
Jennifer Bray’s tee-up of the first day of the 34th Dáil sets out how the main topic on the agenda is an election for the coveted post of ceann comhairle.
A draft agenda for the rest of the day was circulated among TDs on Tuesday afternoon and it provisionally included time for the nomination of a taoiseach.
This would be a normal matter of course on the first sitting day of the new Dáil.
However, at a meeting of the Dáil’s business committee on Tuesday night, however, it was decided not to proceed with formal nominations of a taoiseach.
As Bray writes the next Dáil sitting could happen as early as January 22nd, although much is dependent now on how successful those government-formation talks are.
Best Reads
Ireland is ‘extreme against Israel’, according to that country’s ambassador Dana Erlich in the wake of the closure of its embassy here. Pat Leahy and Harry McGee report on her comments and others by President Michael D Higgins who hit back at claims from Israel that Ireland’s position was motivated by anti-Semitism as “gross defamation”.
Marie O’Halloran has a look at the runners and riders in the upcoming Seanad election including Independents Cathal Barry and Matt Shanahan and others who lost Dáil seats last month.
The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin has chipped in advance of the new Dáil sitting. As Patsy McGarry reports Dermot Farrell has advised the public that their “expectations of politics and government must be tempered with realism”.
He also said: “Politics – for all that we say about it – is, in the end, ‘a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good’”, quoting Pope Francis.
Conor Gallagher reports that Gardaí investigating the suspected murder of eight-year-old Kyran Durnin are working to determine if one of the main suspects left behind any vital information on the disappearance before his death this week. On Tuesday, gardaí and emergency services found the body of Anthony Maguire (36) in his Drogheda home, six days after he was arrested in connection with Kyran’s disappearance. Gardaí are not seeking anyone else in relation to Mr Maguire’s death and have described the incident as a “personal tragedy”.
In a headache for hauliers and passengers in the week before Christmas Holyhead ferry port is to remain closed until January 15th at the earliest after it was damaged in a recent storm, Colm Keena reports.
Conor Gallagher has a story about how the Garda is to foot €12m bill for shoes in coming years. The budget is to cover dress shoes intended for ceremonial duty, boots designed for the beat and shoes for ‘indoor use’.
Playbook
Proceedings in Leinster House kick off at 10:30am with the clerk Peter Finnegan reading the Proclamation summoning Dáil Éireann.
This is followed by the report on the issue of Writs for election of members and the announcement of the names of TDs returned.
The voting for the election of a ceann comhairle starts at 10:55am.
There is a break at starting at noon as votes are counted.
The result of the ceann comhairle election is due to be announced at 3:30pm.
Time has been set aside for the nomination of a Taoiseach after that , though no names are expected to be put forward today.
The Dáil is expected to adjourn until the new year at 5:32pm.
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