vacancy stems from the resignation of Michael Healy-Rae<\/a> after the fuel price protests last month.<\/p>\nThe position is going to a Fianna F\u00e1il TD with chairperson of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee, Aindrias Moynihan, seen as the front runner.<\/p>\n
His role as chair could potentially go to Carlow-Kilkenny TD Peter ‘Chap’ Cleere.<\/p>\n
However, there is a sense within Government that Fine Gael will want an assurance that Fianna F\u00e1il will support its candidate in the Seanad bye-election before signing off on the minister of state post.<\/p>\n
“There will have to be a conversation,” said one senior Government figure.<\/p>\n
This Seanad bye-election, which must be held within six months, was triggered following the election of Fine Gael’s Sean Kyne to the D\u00e1il yesterday.<\/p>\n
This contest has a small electorate of TDs and senators and the early speculation has centred on Fine Gael’s unsuccessful Dublin Central candidate, Ray McAdam, as a possible runner.<\/p>\n
But party insiders pointed out today that many people have already expressed their interest in the role to T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris.<\/p>\n
The Committee on the Irish Language is also set to get a new chairperson this week.<\/p>\n
The position previously held by President Catherine Connolly has not been filled since she left the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
The appointment rests with the Taoiseach and Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin but it is understood that Independent TD Barry Heneghan is keen on the role.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, the two new TDs elected in the bye-elections, the Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis and Fine Gael’s Sean Kyne, will take their seats in the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
Independent candidate Gerard Hutch, who finished fourth in the Dublin Central bye-election, hinted on social media today that he intends to run in the constituency at the next election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new minister of state at the Department of Agriculture is expected to be announced later this week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-467065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}