Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald
Ireland’s deputy prime minister has agreed to resign to avert a parliamentary vote that would have collapsed the government and triggered a snap election at a crunch time for Brexit negotiations, Irish media reported yesterday.
Irish lawmakers had been due to vote later on a no-confidence motion targeting deputy premier Frances Fitzgerald, filed by opposition party Fianna Fail.
Fianna Fail wanted Fitzgerald ousted over her involvement in a long- running police scandal. Opposition leaders accuse a previous government, in which Fitzgerald was justice minister, of failing to defend a whistleblower exposing corruption in Ireland’s police force.
They say newly disclosed emails show Fitzgerald knew about attempts by senior officers to discredit the whistleblower earlier than she had previously acknowledged.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party have backed Fitzgerald. But Irish broadcaster RTE and other outlets said yesterday he has accepted her resignation, heading off a vote that the minority government would likely have lost.
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