THE Dail has been suspended today as chaos erupted with the Ceann Comhairle blasting TDs for having “no respect”.
TDs broke into several minutes of uproar, heckling and yelling from their seats in the Dail chamber towards the end of leaders’ questions.
Many members of the opposition voiced their anger as the Ceann Comhairle looked to move towards a vote on the Government’s speaking rights proposals.
But she was shouted down by opposition TDs and suspended the House at 2.49pm.
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy declared the TDs were “making an absolutely holy show” of themselves.
She said: “It’s very clear you have no respect for the chair”.
She said: “You are making an absolutely holy show of yourselves….”Resume your seats…this is absolutely farcical.”
The Ceann Comhairle said that the dispute over Dail speaking time has “reached an impasse” and must be resolved by a vote
Murphy questioned whether some TDs did not respect her and said it was her duty, as speaker of the Irish parliament’s lower house, to ensure that it functions.
She said: “I have invested as much as 20 hours over the past months trying to come to a consensus and an agreement, unfortunately we have reached an impasse.
“We have reached an impasse, and when we reach an impasse, we then move to the mechanism that moves all democratically elected (bodies) from an impasse, which is the voting mechanism.”
Minutes before the chaos erupted, Taoiseach Micheal Martin was repeatedly interrupted while speaking about the heated dispute between government and opposition over parliamentary speaking time.
The Fianna Fail leader said: “I was elected to this House first in 1989, I have never seen an attempt like this.”
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said that the Irish government had attempted to “turn the Dail inside out” with a “brazen stroke” on Dail speaking time.
She told Deputy Martin it was “staggering” the lengths taken to label Independent TD Michael Lowry and other government affiliated independents as opposition TDs.
Deputy McDonald said: “Clearly Taoiseach, your word means nothing,” she said, referencing a previous commitment given in January to find a compromise satisfactory to both government and opposition.
“Instead you propose to turn the Dail inside out.”
