Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The practice has been that if a vacancy arises in the Seanad from one of the Government parties, the party from which the vacancy arises would nominate a person to fill the vacancy. Deputy McDonald would be familiar with the parallel practice for city and county councils, as well as the European Parliament. When people from the Deputy's party have stood down and a vacancy arose, the party would have nominated people to fill the vacancy. We are talking about a standard practice relating to the filling of casual vacancies and with the Seanad, the vacancy would lie with the party from which the vacancy arose. It is consistent with what Sinn Féin has done on previous occasions-----

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