Irish government faces no-confidence vote after losing majority

Foreign minister confident government will win vote

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald on Thursday (PA)

Sinn Fein has confirmed it will lodge a motion of no confidence in Ireland’s government after the three-party coalition lost its majority following a vote earlier in the week.

Leader Mary Lou McDonald said the party will table the motion in the dail next week as the government had “now lost its parliamentary majority, and is failing to tackle the cost of living and housing crises”.

Former education minister Joe McHugh voted against the Government's mica redress scheme Bill, which aims to compensate homeowners in four counties affected by defective building blocks.

The government has said it is confident it will win the vote.

It comes after a member of the centre-right Fine Gael resigned the party whip on Wednesday after voting against a bill introduced by the government, which also includes Prime Minister Micheal Martin's centre-right Fianna Fail and the Green Party.

Former education minister Joe McHugh voted against the government's mica redress scheme bill, which aims to compensate homeowners in four counties affected by defective building blocks.

It leaves the coalition with 79 seats in the 160-seat lower house. However, some of the other lawmakers that have left the government over the last two years continue to back it on major votes.

"It can certainly cobble together majorities for votes on a one-by-one basis, but two years on we believe that this government has now run out of road," Ms McDonald told RTE Morning Ireland. “They’re out of time. They’re out of ideas.”

With Sinn Fein, Ireland's main opposition party, also way ahead of any other party in opinion polls, those aligned with the government are unlikely to vote to topple it and bring forward elections that are scheduled for 2025.

Irish minister for foreign affairs, Simon Coveney (PA Wire)

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said he was very confident the government would win the vote, pointing out that it passed the contentious bill that his colleague resigned over this week by four votes.

"I think we will have a strong working majority and that will be clear this week," Mr Coveney told RTE.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe accused Sinn Fein of being interested in “building a culture of instability”.

“Over the last two years, this is a country that has faced an extraordinary test in a pandemic and during that time we had to take extraordinary measures that did include the closure of the construction sector for a period of time,” Mr Donohoe said.

“This government has put in place measures that helped our country recover from a pandemic, helped our economy recover from a pandemic, help society deal with a threat the like of which we have never confronted.

Additional reporting by agencies