Peadar Tóibín calls for reform of standing orders on Dáil speaking time

Vivienne Clarke

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has said that his party will speak with other political parties about reforming standing orders on speaking time in the Dáil so a situation does not arise in the future about technical group membership.

Every TD has an equal right to speak in the Dáil on the basis of their mandate, he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

Mr Tóibín rejected a suggestion that he wanted to have his cake and eat it, there was a lot of false information and hypocrisy, he said.

“Whether we're in or out of the technical group, it makes absolutely no difference to whether the technical group functions at all. Secondly, it would be a failure on my part to my constituents if I literally fell on my sword on this issue and gave up speaking rights. And every TD should have the right to properly speak in the Dáil in terms of major issues concerning their constituents.

“If you're not in a technical group, you are literally begging, borrowing and stealing for a minute here and a minute there, asking whips from other political parties to give you 60 seconds on a bill or a motion or some issue of great importance. You don't have Leader’s Questions. You don't have the right to question ministers. You don't have the right to be a member of a committee to hold ministers to account.”

Mr Tóibín said there was a cynical element to the attacks to which he was being subjected.

“You have the likes of Sinn Fein being very generous with other technical groups and saying, well, we just need to join the People Before Profit or the Independent Ireland groups. It's very easy to offer somebody else's speaking time. I've said to Sinn Fein, listen, if you want us to lead a technical group, we'll do it today.

"Well, you have to ask Mary Lou to give her Leader’s Questions at times to Peadar Tóibín, to give some of your ministerial questions to us. You have to give us access to committees.”

Mr Tóibín said that when he made such suggestions to other politicians “they tend to slink away and disappear”.

“You know, they talk about holding the government to account. It was our speaking time that actually held the governments to account in the referendums on issues such as immigration, such as the issues in relation to tax and the cost of living crisis on fuel.

“The solution to this, which none of the major political parties are talking about on this, is actually to reform the standing orders to actually allow for every seat to have an equal mandate in the Dáil in terms of speaking time on the basis of the mandate that they received from the people just a couple of months ago.”