Marc MacSharry to be readmitted to Fianna Fáil parliamentary party

Sligo TD Marc MacSharry is set to return to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party a year after he resigned the whip over a motion of confidence in Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney.

Mr MacSharry had been a vocal critic of Fianna Fáil policy and direction since the party entered Government in 2020 and had been particularly critical of the performance of Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

He resigned in September 2021 when the party refused to have a meeting about Fianna Fáil’s voting intentions on a Sinn Féin motion of no confidence in Mr Coveney. The motion focused on Mr Coveney’s role in the appointment of former minister Katherine Zappone to a UN envoy role.

Mr Martin outlined to a meeting of party TDs and Senators on Wednesday night that he had spoken to Mr MacSharry and the Deputy had outlined his wish to return to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.

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He was responding to a request made last week from Barry Cowen that Mr MacSharry be readmitted to the parliamentary party.

He said a motion will now be formally tabled by the Chief Whip Jack Chambers at next’s weeks meeting to propose Mr MacSharry’s readmission.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told the Fine Gael weekly meeting that details of the Mica concrete blocks levy had still to be discussed by ministers and no final decision had yet been made. However, he stood over the rationale behind the a levy.

He told his colleagues that in respect of a blocks level, the construction sector will have to be the focus.

A number of Fine Gael TDs and Senators expressed concern that the level could cause building costs to rise and would adversely affect house buyers most.

However, the Fine Gael leader said it wasn’t credible to have a multibillion euro commitment over many years to repair and rebuild Mica homes “without a revenue stream to pay for it.”

The party also had a long discussion on further action that it wants to help people in their 20s and 30s get on to the property ladder. It includes a higher paces of urgency to renovate 30,000 vacant homes, improvements in the planning process, and a change of income limits to make house purchase incentive schemes more accessible for workers.

At the Fianna Fáil meeting, Mr Martin told TDs that the Government would “do everything” to provide ongoing support and help to the community in Creeslough, following the tragedy in the village last week that resulted in the death of ten people.

Fine Gael also held a minute’s silence in memory of those who had died.

Two months before he steps down as Taoiseach, Mr Martin told Fianna Fáil colleagues that his own Shared Island initiative was “driving forward” and that over €120 million had been allocated to cross-Border initiatives in areas such as research, biodiversity and climate change.

A number of Dublin TDs and Senators including Cormac Devlin, John Lahart and Mart Fitzpatrick raised concerns about the level of services being offered in relation to community welfare and Intreo Centres across Dublin.