Varadkar defends Ryan flying home for confidence vote

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has defended Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan having to fly back to Dublin to vote for embattled Minister for Justice Helen McEntee in the confidence vote.

Ryan planned to interrupt his trip to the COP28 summit in Dubai to fly back from Dublin as vote pairing is not allowed in confidence votes. 

However on Monday, Ryan told reporters that Jennifer Whitmore of the Social Democrats had agreed to take part in vote pairing, and Ryan will remain in Dubai.

Varadkar admitted over the weekend the optics of Ryan flying back and from an international climate on the environment was “not ideal,” but said that “Minister Ryan doesn’t have a choice unfortunately.”

Varadkar explained, “it is a confidence vote and pairs are only given for people who are sick or incapacitated, so he isn’t able to get a pair for that reason.”

“He is going to come back from Dubai from COP and then head out there again – which isn’t ideal but, given the circumstances, I don’t think he has any choice.”

However, Whitmore, who will be voting against Government, has offered to act as Ryan’s vote pairer.

“I’ve been offered a pair in the vote in the Dáil, so I will be staying here for the next few days,” Ryan said.

“Jennifer Whitmore from the Social Democrats offered me a pair last night. I consulted with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste and they both agree it makes sense to stay here.”

“The Dáil still has primacy but a pairing arrangement allows your vote not to be marked out, as it were,” he told The Journal.

Announcing the vote on Friday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said “Sinn Féin has been forced to put down a motion of no-confidence in the Minister for Justice because this Government is not listening.”

“We cannot have a Justice Minister who refuses to acknowledge the political failures that allowed our communities to become unsafe,” she said.

The virtue of Ryan voting with Government indicates that the rest of the Green Party will vote with Government on the confidence vote, meaning that the vote will fail.

Press rumblings that Fianna Fáil backbenchers were not going to support McEntee in the confidence vote have failed to materialise, and no sitting Government TD has indicated they were going to vote against Government on the measure.

Sinn Féin and other opposition parties do not have the numbers alone to force McEntee out, and need some dissenting Government TDs as well as the support of rural Independents on the vote.l