Meanwhile, in amongst Independents and Others… a new party?

Having been out in the sun all morning I’m hiding from it now. It gets like that after two, is it two, weeks of more or less continuous sunshine and another week to go. And what do I read here in the shade in the IT? Well Miriam Lord writing today that:

…the Technical Group has more splinters than a broken plank. Mick Wallace and Ming Flanagan’s row with the group over speaking rights at Leaders’ Questions has intensified, with the pair said to be taking legal advice.

They insist they are being denied their chance to perform at the high-profile Dáil slot, even though Séamus Healy and Stephen Donnelly were chosen in a straight vote. “Defunct democracy” is how one of them put it.

The talk of court action and injunctions continues, with Ming insisting at this week’s group meeting that Healy and Donnelly’s turn in September “is not going to happen”.

That’s all very well, and no doubt we’ll see how it pans out. But while interesting – in a silly season way, and perhaps because of what it might herald for the broader perception of the Indo/Others by the electorate if there are significant ruptures, it isn’t quite as interesting as the following:

And there are rumblings that former Labour junior minister Róisín Shortall has opened talks with a number of left-leaning Independent TDs with a view to giving voters an alternative to the Labour Party. We understand she had talks with Thomas Pringle, among others, this week.

Could it be? Would Pringle work with Shortall? And isn’t this a rather unlikely source for any such ‘alternative to the LP’ to be coming from? One would think Broughan and Nulty would be much more likely to take the lead in any such venture. It’s not as if there isn’t scope there for such a party, though as with the FG apostates it would presumably lack the numbers to gain any additional speaking time and other rights/service provision from the Oireachtas. And consider the individuals who might sign up. Murphy maybe though maybe not, Pringle, Halligan perhaps, O’Sullivan almost certainly not. Who else? McGrath (F), erm… I’m scratching my head here, who else? Okay, throw in Keaveney, Nulty and Broughan (a bit unlikely, but still) and maybe. But I’m just not convinced.

I wonder if it wouldn’t be too big an ask for those who have contested elections as Independents to break for a ‘new party’ thereby jettisoning a significant portion of their electoral appeal. And what profit them to do so otherwise? In any case I’d have thought that Shortall was on a trajectory that sooner or later would bring her back to the LP. Would anyone else seek to join her on that trajectory? Again, unlikely.

Mind you Lord isn’t far wrong about TDs of all persuasions heading for the exits as fast as possible now the term is over. It’s not just the good weather, not after the similarly heated last few weeks in the Dáil. Sadly the Seanad have a while longer to go before they finish up.

Says Enda Kenny. Ba dum dam tish!

I’ll get my sunglasses.