The Dáil met on Thursday (20 Feb) following the General Election 2020. Seán Ó Fearghaíl retained the Ceann Comhairle position, winning the chair against Denis Naughten. Micheal Martin was then nominated by the Fianna Fáil party to become Taoiseach, he received 41 votes in total, with 4 independent votes, from Cathal Berry, Seán Canney, Noel Grealish and Micheal McNamara. Sinn Féin then nominated Mary Lou McDonald. She received the most votes of all 3 nominees on the day with 45 votes cast in her favour. The sitting Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, then received just 36 votes, one more than his parties 35 votes coming from Independent TD Seán Canney.
The Sinn Féin Party will continue to attempt to for a government with smaller left wing parties and independents. After a successful general election campaign SF are trying to form a government of the left.
The Fine Gael leadership has decided to go into opposition. The hope is that they will lead the opposition against a Sinn Féin/Fianna Fáil Coalition. Yesterday (18/02/2020) the Parliamentary Party of Fine Gael had a six hour meeting, at which they agreed to go into Opposition.
Sinn Féin made surprise gains in Saturday's Irish General Election getting 25% of first preference votes, however due to the lower number of candidates it missed out on the highest number of seats in the next Dail (Parliament) with Fianna Fáil getting 38 seats just one above Sinn Féin. Fine Gael lost 12 seats to come third with just 35 seats. The Greens were the other big winners with 12 seats, Labour lost one seat while the Social Democrats gained 4.
Forget the resignation of An Tainiste, Frances Fitzgerald, a few weeks back. Remember Leo's charge at the English Foes, at least that what seems to be the case for the FG Party's rise in popularity in the lastest Irish Times political poll. It see FG at 36% of first preference votes, while FF have see a fall back to 25%. Sinn Fein see no change at 19% of the vote, with others at 20%.
In a time of austerity and a divided electorate, the Fine Geal party has at last found its nationalist creditials. FG are typically distingushed as west-Brits. Those on the Ireland of Ireland who beleive that all is good on the mainland. As a right wing party FG have never really shown any really ambition for Ireland, or at least from the outside and for many in the electorate this seems to be the case. The nationalism however is not Irish nationalism in the real sense which is better defined as republican. An Taoiseach Leo Varkarda and his Tainiste, Simon Covney, have with Brexit are now in a position to highlight their Irishness by taking on the old foe the English, as the battle to retain an invisible boarder between north and south, this is helped by the DUPs stance that Northern Ireland should be treated no less than those in Scotland, England and Wales when travelling to the Mainland.
