Budget vote was tighter than SF expected?

| Readers 1

Strictly for the record, but worth noting that the decision of the SDLP not to vote with the budget must have forced a degree of unexpected pressure from Sinn Fein whips to have sufficient MLAs in the Chamber for the budget vote. Given it was a cross community vote, it needed a nationalist majority to pass. In the event the Aye vote was just 59.5% (and that’s with the Minister voting against the SDLP line).

Six out of the 28 Sinn Fein MLAs did not make it into the chamber for what was, arguably, the most important vote in the legislative year. I count them as: Alex Maskey; Martina Anderson; Raymond McCartney; Paul Butler; Francie Molloy (Deputy Speaker); and John O’Dowd (leader of the Sinn Fein group in the Assembly.

Discover more from Slugger O'Toole

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Recent posts

Frank Schnittger

Six Nations 2025 Preview

David Bell

From 17th-Century Ecclesiastical Scholarship to Modern-Day Science Education: Less Progress Than You Might Think…

Slugger Team

Deal struck on New Irish government

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated. 

Give a monthly donation Give a one-off donation