Irish Prime Minister ‘to resign’ amid crisis
The Irish Prime Minister, Frances Fitzgerald has written to the leader of the country’s biggest opposition party confirming that the Irish deputy prime minister has offered her resignation.
Mr Varadkar said he had accepted it. It comes ahead of a Fianna Fáil motion of no confidence in Frances Fitzgerald, which was due to be debated in the Dáil (Irish parliament) at 20:00 local time.
Ms Fitzgerald had been at the centre of a controversy which could have resulted in a snap general election.
Calls for Ms Fitzgerald to resign related to her handling of a controversy involving a police whistleblower when she was Irish justice minister.
Ms Fitzgerald has faced questions about what she knew about what lawyers were going to put to the whistleblower at a commission of enquiry.
The Disclosures Tribunal is investigating, amongst other matters, whether the former Garda commissioners, NoirÃn O’Sullivan and Martin Callinan, were involved in an attempt to smear Sgt Maurice McCabe with the false allegation that he was a child-sex abuser.
