An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Dail Éireann — 2025-12-16 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central It is a matter for each political party to decide when the whip applies and when it does not. If we changed all our processes, the Deputy would love for us to divide and fragment. That would suit her fine but there is a reason for political parties too. I would argue that we have had a democracy for 100 years because we have had strong cohesive political parties that were stable and able to deliver policies in times of crisis and in good times. That is a comment I would make generally and not in the context of the specific issue raised by the Deputy. The parties will decide individually on that issue and the whip will apply. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-16