But soon after that amendment was passed, Martin was shouted down as he attempted to answer his first question. As scores of opposition lawmakers stood and refused to stop shouting, Murphy conceded defeat and shut parliament for the day.
It marked the second time she was forced to take that step following January’s first failed attempt to elect Martin as Taoiseach, Ireland’s “chief.”
Murphy wasn’t even able to announce the official outcome of Tuesday’s vote, she said, because opposition lawmakers refused to sign the document confirming the number of votes cast on their side. Moments earlier, video screens inside the Leinster House parliament building showed the government had won in a 94-74 verdict.
A visibly angry Murphy at one point accused opposition lawmakers of treating her, the first female speaker of Ireland’s parliament, with “misogyny.”
“Deputies, while you may not have respect for me, I am the chair. When I speak, nobody else speaks,” she said during one of several failed attempts to get Sinn Féin politicians to sit down and shut up.
Collapse in consensus
The collapse in cross-party consensus on the rules governing Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s parliament, has made it impossible to establish cross-party committees that scrutinize government bills.