Long government negotiations

[THR]

Have all Irsish general elections led to a formation of government within one month from the elction or have there sometimes been longer negotiations?

I wonder what is the longest negotiation for forming a government. I´m sure such a record has been set in either Belgium or in the Netherlands as in both countries it is customary to have months of negotiations before a new government takes office. In Belgium they are attemting a new record at the moment. There was a general election on June 10th and they are still negotiating. Actually, some talks ended in stalemate, so they have to start again.

In fact, in Britain all people who are vehemently opposed to reforming the British electoral system and introducing a PR-system often refer to either Italy or Belgium as to what would follow if they ditched FPTP.

[Lord of Kerry]

the FF/Labour government 93-94 came into being on the 12 Jan. 1993 the election had been held on Nov 25th 1992

[THR]

I think there should be some reasonable time-limit by which there must be a new government in place or otherwise there would be another election. In such an election the outcome could be different as people wouldn´t vote for the same parties which couldn´t form a government.

It is understandable that 3-5 weeks may lapse between the elction and the inauguration of a new government but the current Belgian government-negotiations lasting four months with no end in sight is downright ridiculous.

[Insider2007]

The Irish system is rather unique in so far as the head of government is voted for by a parliamentary vote and then appointed by the head of state. In most states the head of state either directly appoints a head of government (eg Britain) or proposes a name for head of government to parliament, who is then appointed by the head of state if parliament approves (Spain, Germany).

The Benelux tradition of naming an informateur (person to explore who should be commissioned to form a government) and then a formateur (a nominee for prime minister) is potentially more time-consuming than the Irish system. However it is foolproof in so far as at every stage of the process there is clarity over the constitutional situation. The Irish system may work more efficiently, but unfortunately it has glaring great holes in it that could cause a constitutional crisis if something goes wrong. For example:

- if the Dail cannot agree on a speaker it cannot vote for a prime minister. So potential crisis number 1.

- if the Dail rejects all nominees, and a taoiseach resigns/ seeks a dissolution and is refused, he becomes what the late Professor John Kelly called a 'phantom taoiseach'. While the constitution says the taoiseach remains in office until his successor is appointed, there is some legal questioning over whether having been refused a dissolution once, he can ask a second time.

- if the Dail nominates X as taoiseach, and the President appoints them, what happens if the Dail then votes down X's nominees to be members of the Government? The constitution is silent, but seems to imply that you'd have a new taoiseach with the old government. So you could in theory have a Fianna Fail taoiseach with a Fine Gael-Labour government, or vice versa. Lawyers say the constitution on that point is a mess.

There are numerous other quirks also in the system. We have been lucky that our system has worked, shakily at times (in 1982 a rebellion nearly happened over Haughey's choice of ministers, etc). But it contains constitutional cul de sacs that if we go down we may have serious difficulties reversing out of. At least even with the ludicrousness of Belgium's lack of a formateur, their system is able to cover the problem.