Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

John O Donoghue nominated as Ceann Comhairle with Labour nominating Ruairi Quinn.
It is going to a vote in the Dail.

She will vote in favour of Bertie Ahern this afternoon after reaching agreement this morning. No comment on whether she will return to Fianna Fail, though Noel Whelan on RTE thinks she will.
Bertie now has 78 (FF)+ 2 (PD) + 6 (green) +4 (Ind)  = 90

Order of Business
Dáil Éireann
3.00 pm
The proceedings shall be opened by the Clerk of the Dáil, who shall read the Proclamation of the President of Ireland dissolving and convening Dáil Éireann.
The Clerk shall then make a Report as to issue of Writs and Announcement as to Returns
Election of Ceann Comhairle.
Nomination of Taoiseach.
Appointment of Taoiseach
Nomination of Members [...]

Trevor Sargent has told Vincent Browne he will not be sitting in Cabinet with Fianna Fail. That means the putative two seats are to be filled from John Gormley, Eamon Ryan, Ciaran Cuffe, Paul Gogarty and/or Mary White. This is added to the absence of Michael McDowell from Cabinet before we even start.
So what will [...]

Surely it will be one of the two cabinet ministers. 

Green Party votes for Government with Fianna Fail.
441/510 to 67/510 carried by 86.81%

Today a draft agreement will go before a hastily assembled national convention of Ireland’s Green party which, its leadership hopes, will to take them into office for the first time ever on Thursday.

From Stephen Crowley: “The whole Trevor thing is true. Leadership contest in september.”
Sargent has since stated he will not be taking up a cabinet seat while on radio with Vincent Browne.
The Greens are expecting the Environment Ministry and either Transport or the Marine

Better than ringing from the Jacks, right? A twitter feed from the Mansion house.
Edit by Cian: Newstalk report that Trevor Sargent says he is willing to resign if needs be. The future of the country is more important than his.
RTE understand he is standing down.
Edit 2: Twitter is back, Stephen is here. Add twitter.com/irishpolitics as a friend [...]

The Irish Times purport to have seen the programme, which has been discussed at length by WBS over at the Cedar Lounge. For those who missed it, the Times reckon that Shannon, the M3, road-building, Mary Harney/Health and income tax cuts are all to proceed as normal. Greens to get E50 Million extra for education [...]

Tomorrow’s conference provides one of those major museum-type situations in politics, where an actor is stripped of cover in their decision making, all the academic modelling and assumptions (rational-choice, culturalism etc) go out the window and the nitty gritty of deciding things takes over. This is something that anoraks will get very excited over and [...]

So FF-Green have done a deal - now the guessing game before the full statement:

Does it include the PDs (and co-location)?
What ministerial positions will the Greens get?
Will Sargent stick to his guns and step down as leader, having guided the party to Government?
With or without Sargent, it’s likely to be another all-Dublin Taoiseach/Tánaiste team, what [...]

From the press office:
The Green Party concluded talks with Fianna Fáil this evening and agreed a draft programme for government that will be put before a special convention of party members tomorrow. Negotiation teams and party leaders reached agreement at approximately 8.30pm after a day of intensive talks and document drafting.The Party has invited [...]

RTÉ News at One is saying that a final agreement has not yet been reached and that Dan Boyle did not tell journalists that a programme for government had been agreed, as has been reported already.
It looks like we’re close to it, however, with Boyle and Noel Dempsey putting the final touches to the agreement [...]

According to Newstalk Dan Boyle has emerged from Government Buildings and confirmed that a text has been agreed between Fianna Fail and the Green Party for a programme for government.  Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent will sign off on it later this afternoon.

I read with a bit of shock the other day in the Sunday Independent an article about J.J Kavanagh coaches. For those of you that don’t know them, Kavanaghs are the largest private bus company in the state and run buses from Dublin to Limerick and around the midlands. He was talking about his business [...]