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Irish Foreign Minister Coveney survives no-confidence vote
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Sep 15, 2021 06:35pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Shawn Pogatchnik |
| News Date | Wednesday, September 15, 2021 09:40:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | DUBLIN — Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney survived a no-confidence vote Wednesday night over his bungled handling of a United Nations appointment — but the dispute dealt fresh damage to Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
The main opposition Sinn Féin party’s motion to oust Coveney was always doomed to failure given the coalition government’s solid majority. Following an ill-tempered two-hour debate featuring vulgar heckling from the Sinn Féin benches, lawmakers voted 92-59 to keep Coveney as Ireland’s point man for post-Brexit relations with Britain.
But as government lawmakers noted, Sinn Féin’s challenge sought to deepen divisions within the ranks of Martin’s struggling Fianna Fáil party. In this it was successful.
Shortly before the debate began, Fianna Fáil lawmaker Marc MacSharry announced he was resigning the party’s whip to join Sinn Féin and other left-wing lawmakers in opposing Coveney, a leading figure in the centrist Fine Gael party.
Martin had warned that any Fianna Fáil lawmaker who voted against Coveney, or abstained, would face a six-month suspension from the party’s parliamentary caucus.
MacSharry, the son of former European commissioner Ray MacSharry, opted to jump first. In his resignation letter, he derided Martin’s leadership as “consistent with an undemocratic totalitarian regime rather than a socialist democratic party of the people.” |
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