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Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said his preference is for a general election on November 29th.
Mr O’Gorman said he will be telling his Coalition partners, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, on Monday that November 29th is “the date to go” to the polls and that the public need clarity around the election date.
“I’ve been out on the doors, even just last night, and I’m starting to get the sense people are getting a little tired of the ‘will they, won’t they’ and probably now’s the time to give some degree of certainty to the Irish people in terms of the election date,” he told reporters in west Dublin on Friday.
“I’ll be meeting the Coalition leaders on Monday. What I’ll be saying to them is that I think we need to give clarity. I’ll be saying my preference is for a November election, for November 29th. I think that gives us the opportunity to get those final pieces of legislation through.”
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The Minister for Children also said his view was to get the election “out of the way” before Christmas and that if the Government was to go with the November 29th date, the Dáil should be dissolved in the first week of November.
Mr O’Gorman said the Maternity Protection Bill, which would allow women with serious illness to defer their maternity leave, would get through the Oireachtas next week while the hate crime legislation would “probably conclude next week as well”.
He said although there was still “a little bit more work” to be done it get the Finance Bill passed, “we can get those done over the next three weeks”.
Mr O’Gorman also said he believed all of the Green Party’s 12 TDs would be returned to the Dáil following the general election.
Responding to Mr O’Gorman’s comments this afternoon, a spokesperson for the Taoiseach said: “It is the Constitutional prerogative of the Taoiseach to call a general election. The Taoiseach has consistently stated he will engage with the coalition leaders before deciding. He has also consistently stated he will not do that through the media.”
Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, who was speaking alongside Mr O’Gorman, said he would not get into speculation around election dates and that it was “above my pay grade”.
Mr O’Brien said while “everyone knows an election is within a matter of weeks or months”, he would take direction from Fianna Fáil party leader Micheál Martin as well as the two other leaders of the Coalition.
He also said although the Government had significant work “left to do”, he believed it could be done in the time frame outlined by Mr O’Gorman.
The Green Party leader’s comments come after Mr Martin opened the door to an early general election in recent days, signalling he would not object to it if certain key legislation was passed in the coming weeks.
Mr Martin did not specify any preference though he indicated that a date in late November or early December would be possible if certain Bills currently before the Oireachtas, including the Finance Bill, were accelerated.
The move comes after repeated suggestions by the Tánaiste in recent months that he favoured a 2025 election.
Speaking in Brussels this week, Taoiseach Simon Harris said he will seek an “appropriate time” to call a general election to ask the public to give him a mandate, once the work of Government is done.
“What I have said previously, what I say again today, is I want the Government to finish the work that is under way. It is then obviously my constitutional prerogative to seek the most appropriate time, and in my view, in the best interest for Ireland to have a general election,” he said.
Speaking in Cork this afternoon, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he agreed there was a need for clarity, but added: “This is something we can deal with next week”.
However, he said he was “not going to get into specific dates”.
Referring to comments he made on The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast on Wednesday, he said he had already made his position clear on the timing of the general election.
He said it was important the planning and gambling bills had been passed. “The finance bill has to get done, and it has to be done properly, that’s the only issue it seems to me.”
“If Roderic is anxious to get it early, obviously the Taoiseach will have a view as well, but to me the finance bill is key, that puts flesh on the bone of the budget.”
Asked about the specific date, he said he had not mentioned the 29th, telling journalists: “I hope you listened to my podcast earlier in the week”.
“The bottom line is you either have it at the end of November or the beginning of December,” he said, or in February.
“If we get the key legislation done… the difference between December and February isn’t huge, so I never got overly excited about that.”
He said he believed there would be clarity this week but that the Taoiseach would have something to say as well.
Asked if Roderic O’Gorman had overstepped the mark by going ahead of him and Mr Harris, he said “Politics is politics… I’m not too excited about it.”
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