It's either November 29, or December 6. So which is it?
It's either November 29, or December 6. So which is it?
More tea-leaf reading on Ireland's electoral timing.
I don’t need to contextualise the headline, do I? I am low-level staggered by how many people gobbled up the last post here about whether the election could take place early (including new subscribers from other media outlets, and indeed the Electoral Commission. Hello!)
More clarity has emerged in the last fortnight, so this follow-up post is to make a quick observation.
It’s almost a dead cert that the election campaign will be, legally, as short as possible. Long run-ins give too much opportunity for undiscovered grenades to blow up in the government’s face. So while a campaign could legally be four weeks, it will almost certainly be three. The minimum gap between the writs being moved, and the day of polling, is 18 days plus Sundays.
It’s also now been confirmed that the Halloween recess will go ahead. The Dáil rises this Thursday and isn’t back for twelve days, until Tuesday 5th November. (That’s U.S. election day, for those who can’t wait for our own polling.)
With much of the government’s legislative agenda now tied down (see previous post for more details) there’s only a few outstanding items to wrap up.
The Finance Bill, giving legal effect to the tax changes of Budget 2025
Supplementary Estimates - some of these have been approved by their committees and are now being reported back to the Dáil; others are only being introduced this week and need their various committees to approve them
An Appropriations Bill which sets those revised estimates in law
A Health Insurance Bill to underpin the ‘community rating’ system for 2025, where healthier customers pay slightly more to cover the higher care costs of others
All four of these bills are routine annual housekeeping; the third and fourth are very routine to do. The Appropriations Bill is so routine and procedural that it often goes through all stages in a single vote without even a word of debate.
Really that leaves two significant bits: the Finance Bill and the Supplementary Estimates. There are 17 of the latter being introduced to the Dáil agenda tomorrow (Wednesday 23rd October) and immediately being referred to their respective committees, but only one committee is getting to consider it this week. Given how quickly the original batch of 12 supplementaries was considered and ratified, it’s plausible to think all of the others could be done promptly. An Appropriations Bill can be pulled together to consolidate all of these in jig time.
In essence, then, we’re left with the Finance Bill, and how quickly it can complete its journey through the Dáil. It’s worth recalling that the Seanad will remain in situ after the Dáil is dissolved, so one chamber is enough; moreover, the Finance Bill is a ‘money bill’ so the Seanad can’t even make amendments, merely recommend them.
The Finance Bill completed its initial (‘second stage’) debate in the big chamber last week, and is now due to go to Committee Stage on the first week after the Halloween break.
The key question is whether the Bill can get through the committee, and the rest of its journey back before the Dáil, in one week. And to be blunt, this isn’t clear.
Micheál Martin has been very clear that while the Finance Bill is the last great obstacle to be removed before a dissolution, he does not want its passage to be rushed, or to appear like it.
After Committee Stage comes ‘Report Stage’ which can often feel like a re-run of the previous. Both entail TDs having the opportunity to put down amendments to the legislation before them. Members are usually given a few days to propose amendments at either of these stages, and given the Finance Bill is a big and bulky piece of legislation extending to well over 200 pages, there might be quite a few of them to get through. Committee Stage might be finished within a day or two, but even if that took all day Tuesday and Wednesday, it might look rushed to try and shove the bill through Report Stage a day later, restricting the time available to TDs to even merely suggest any possible changes.
And at this point of the cycle, with one major Bill standing in the way of an election, the optics will matter more than usual. All it would take is for one opposition TD to get traction on Twitter/X complaining about debate ‘being quashed by a government desperate to avoid scrutiny’ or somesuch, and the optics of cutting and running so quickly simply might not be workable.
If passing the Bill is a one-week job, the election will be on Friday 29th November.
If it needs two weeks to complete Committee and Report Stages, it’ll be on Friday 6th December.
(Any later than that, and the new Dáil would have to reconvene sometime around Christmas, and there might be the expectation of coalition talks throughout the holidays.)
Late Late Exit Poll Toy Show, anyone?