Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
Sadly, there is. The tanaiste, Brian Cowen is popular in his own party and likely to get the leadership. The opposition once described this gentle soul as "the only man left in Ireland who still believes Ahern" after his defence of his beloved leader.
Found this on wikipedia, now help translate from weird irish to english:

The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of Oireachtas), and must, while he or she remains in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil. The current Taoiseach is Bertie Ahern, TD, leader of the Fianna Fáil party. On 2 April 2008, he announced his intention to step down, as of 6 May 2008.
So... Translating this into standard euro parliamentary systems... "dail Eireann" would be parliament? Or just a part of it? So Taoiseach would be a PM, who is elected just like any other PM, ie not by direct election, election is for MP's, and then one of the parties says "hey, we're gonna have the PM!", they pick a guy and parliament then either votes for him or ditches him. So to get a new Taoiseach from a different party, there would have to be a new election for parliament and that parliament would have to get a different majority. Right?



Do excuse the rambling... It's in the middle of the night and I just woke up to get me a good-night pint...