PA Media/dpa
London
Micheál Martin has received the backing of the Irish parliament to be nominated as the country’s next prime minister.
Parliamentarians voted 95 to 76 in support of the nomination of the Fianna Fáil leader, the day after a chaotic row disrupted the process and resulted in the suspension of the Dáil.
Martin will formally become Ireland’s taoiseach, as the prime minister is known in Irish, during a ceremony with President Michael D Higgins at his official residence at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin.
Higgins will sign the warrant of appointment and hand Martin the Seal of the Taoiseach. The nomination was originally supposed to have taken place on Wednesday, but a dispute over speaking rights for independents affiliated with the incoming coalition led to the Dáil being adjourned.
Martin’s Fianna Fáil emerged as the largest party after the Irish general election at the end of November.
It agreed to re-enter a coalition with Fine Gael, led by outgoing taoiseach Simon Harris. The two parties combined were just short of a majority in the Dáil and will be supported by several independent lawmakers for the five-year government term after lengthy negotiations.
Efforts to nominate Martin on Wednesday had to be abandoned over a disagreement on whether government-affiliated lawmakers could be allocated opposition speaking time.
The Dáil reconvened at 11:40 am (1140 GMT) on Thursday to proceed with the nomination of a taoiseach after extensive negotiations resulted in agreement that parliamentary rules needed to be reviewed.
Sinn Féin put party leader Mary Lou McDonald forward for the role, but she conceded in her speech that the bid would not be successful.
Martin, 64, served as taoiseach in the last coalition government with Fine Gael and the Green Party. That coalition introduced a “rotating taoiseach” mechanism which saw the top office swapped between the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael midway through the term.
The arrangement will be repeated, although on a three-to-two-year basis in favour of Fianna Fáil in recognition of the party’s 10-seat lead over Fine Gael.
It continues a partnership which began in 2020 and set aside almost a century of animosity between the two parties forged from opposing sides of Ireland’s Civil War of the 1920s.
Martin, from Cork, cites the moment Ireland became the first country to implement a workplace smoking ban in 2004 during his time as health minister as among his proudest political achievements.
